diff --git a/pkgs/development/tools/parsing/bison/bison-2.3.nix b/pkgs/development/tools/parsing/bison/bison-2.3.nix
index 7ebdb863d58..fcf4ed10795 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/tools/parsing/bison/bison-2.3.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/tools/parsing/bison/bison-2.3.nix
@@ -8,7 +8,9 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation {
     url = mirror://gnu/bison/bison-2.3.tar.bz2;
     md5 = "c18640c6ec31a169d351e3117ecce3ec";
   };
+
   buildNativeInputs = [m4];
+  propagatedBuildInputs = [m4];
 
   meta = {
     description = "GNU Bison, a Yacc-compatible parser generator";