diff --git a/debian/bin/test-patches b/debian/bin/test-patches
index 7baf26e23..6cf9bfcb3 100755
--- a/debian/bin/test-patches
+++ b/debian/bin/test-patches
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ dpkg-checkbuilddeps -B
 version="$(dpkg-parsechangelog | sed 's/^Version: //; t; d')"
 if [ "${version%a~test}" = "$version" ]; then
     version="$version"a~test
-    dch -v "$version" "Testing patches $*"
+    dch -v "$version" --distribution UNRELEASED "Testing patches $*"
 fi
 debversion="${version##*-}"
 
diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index 9622d02ca..66ab9295d 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -43,6 +43,8 @@ linux-2.6 (2.6.32-6) UNRELEASED; urgency=low
     - inotify: do not reuse watch descriptors (Closes: #561880)
     - megaraid_sas: remove sysfs poll_mode_io world writeable permissions
       (CVE-2009-3939) (Closes: #562975)
+  * Force distribution=UNRELEASED in debian/bin/test-patches so that it
+    works in released source packages
 
   [ Ian Campbell ]
   * xen: Enable up to 32G of guest memory on i386.