diff --git a/docs/guestfs-building.pod b/docs/guestfs-building.pod
index 8ac75ea9b..a70ab81cb 100644
--- a/docs/guestfs-building.pod
+++ b/docs/guestfs-building.pod
@@ -263,11 +263,6 @@ Optional.  Used only for testing.
 
 Optional.  qemu-nbd is used for testing.
 
-=item liblzma
-
-Optional.  If available, virt-builder will use this library
-for fast, parallel uncompression of templates.
-
 =item python-evtx
 
 Optional.  Used by L<virt-log(1)> to parse Windows Event Log files.
diff --git a/m4/guestfs-misc-libraries.m4 b/m4/guestfs-misc-libraries.m4
index fd303cb78..a03c2cced 100644
--- a/m4/guestfs-misc-libraries.m4
+++ b/m4/guestfs-misc-libraries.m4
@@ -38,20 +38,6 @@ CFLAGS="$CFLAGS $LIBCRYPT_CFLAGS"
 AC_CHECK_HEADERS([crypt.h])
 CFLAGS="$old_CFLAGS"
 
-dnl liblzma can be used by virt-builder (optional).
-PKG_CHECK_MODULES([LIBLZMA], [liblzma], [
-    AC_SUBST([LIBLZMA_CFLAGS])
-    AC_SUBST([LIBLZMA_LIBS])
-    AC_DEFINE([HAVE_LIBLZMA],[1],[liblzma found at compile time.])
-
-    dnl Old lzma in RHEL 6 didn't have some APIs we need.
-    old_LIBS="$LIBS"
-    LIBS="$LIBS $LIBLZMA_LIBS"
-    AC_CHECK_FUNCS([lzma_index_stream_flags lzma_index_stream_padding])
-    LIBS="$old_LIBS"
-],
-[AC_MSG_WARN([liblzma not found, virt-builder will be slower])])
-
 dnl Readline (used by guestfish).
 AC_ARG_WITH([readline],[
     AS_HELP_STRING([--with-readline],