diff --git a/src/libostree/ostree-repo-checkout.c b/src/libostree/ostree-repo-checkout.c
index 8696229b37..2e50c30ded 100644
--- a/src/libostree/ostree-repo-checkout.c
+++ b/src/libostree/ostree-repo-checkout.c
@@ -1346,9 +1346,14 @@ ostree_repo_checkout_composefs (OstreeRepo *self, GVariant *options, int destina
   if (!ostree_composefs_target_write (target, tmpf.fd, &fsverity_digest, cancellable, error))
     return FALSE;
 
-  /* If the commit specified a composefs digest, verify it */
-  if (!compare_verity_digests (metadata_composefs, fsverity_digest, error))
-    return FALSE;
+  /* If the commit specified a composefs digest and the target is known to have fsverity,
+   * then double check our ouptut.
+   */
+  if (verity == OT_TRISTATE_YES)
+    {
+      if (!compare_verity_digests (metadata_composefs, fsverity_digest, error))
+        return FALSE;
+    }
 
   if (!glnx_fchmod (tmpf.fd, 0644, error))
     return FALSE;
diff --git a/tests/test-composefs.sh b/tests/test-composefs.sh
index 12813cf2a9..72f81284ec 100755
--- a/tests/test-composefs.sh
+++ b/tests/test-composefs.sh
@@ -62,4 +62,14 @@ composefs-info dump test2-co-noverity.cfs > dump.txt
 assert_file_has_content_literal dump.txt '/baz/cow 4 100644 1 0 0 0 0.0 f6/a517d53831a40cff3886a965c70d57aa50797a8e5ea965b2c49cc575a6ff51.file - -'
 tap_ok "checkout composefs noverity"
 
+# Test with a corrupted composefs digest
+$OSTREE commit ${COMMIT_ARGS} -b test-composefs-bad-digest --tree=ref=test-composefs \
+    '--add-metadata=ostree.composefs.digest.v0=[byte 0x13, 0xae, 0xae, 0xed, 0xc0, 0x34, 0xd1, 0x39, 0xef, 0xfc, 0xd6, 0x6f, 0xe3, 0xdb, 0x08, 0xd3, 0x32, 0x8a, 0xec, 0x2f, 0x02, 0xc5
+, 0xa7, 0x8a, 0xee, 0xa6, 0x0f, 0x34, 0x6d, 0x7a, 0x22, 0x6d]'
+if $OSTREE checkout --composefs test-composefs-bad-digest test2-co.cfs 2>err.txt; then
+    fatal "checked out composefs with mismatched digest"
+fi
+assert_file_has_content_literal err.txt "doesn't match expected digest"
+tap_ok "checkout composefs bad digest"
+
 tap_end