diff --git a/pkgs/development/interpreters/octave/default.nix b/pkgs/development/interpreters/octave/default.nix
index 6bb3431668f4..4209ad7e36d9 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/interpreters/octave/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/interpreters/octave/default.nix
@@ -13,6 +13,8 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
     graphicsmagick pcre liblapack texLive pkgconfig mesa fltk zlib curl
     fftw fftwSinglePrec ];
 
+  doCheck = true;
+
   enableParallelBuilding = true;
 
   configureFlags = [ "--enable-readline" "--enable-dl" ];