diff --git a/test/external_code/Makefile b/test/external_code/Makefile
index 4a4fb6251..6da3f62fc 100644
--- a/test/external_code/Makefile
+++ b/test/external_code/Makefile
@@ -44,6 +44,10 @@ endif
 ifneq ($(DPDK_LIB_DIR),)
 COMMON_CFLAGS+=-L$(DPDK_LIB_DIR)
 endif
+
+ifneq ($(VFIO_LIB_DIR),)
+COMMON_CFLAGS+=-L$(VFIO_LIB_DIR)
+endif
 export
 .PHONY: all
 
diff --git a/test/external_code/test_make.sh b/test/external_code/test_make.sh
index 84cbef690..d98cac346 100755
--- a/test/external_code/test_make.sh
+++ b/test/external_code/test_make.sh
@@ -22,7 +22,8 @@ make -C $SPDK_DIR -j$(nproc)
 export SPDK_HEADER_DIR="$SPDK_DIR/include"
 export SPDK_LIB_DIR="$SPDK_DIR/build/lib"
 export DPDK_LIB_DIR="${SPDK_RUN_EXTERNAL_DPDK:-$SPDK_DIR/dpdk/build}/lib"
-export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:$SPDK_LIB_DIR:$DPDK_LIB_DIR:"$test_root/passthru"
+export VFIO_LIB_DIR="$SPDK_DIR/libvfio-user/build/release/lib"
+export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:$SPDK_LIB_DIR:$DPDK_LIB_DIR:$VFIO_LIB_DIR:"$test_root/passthru"
 
 # The default target is to make both the app and bdev and link them against the combined SPDK shared library libspdk.so.
 run_test "external_make_tc1" make -C $test_root hello_world_bdev_shared_combo