diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-cpp.R b/tests/testthat/test-cpp.R
index 0eec8118..2114cee8 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-cpp.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-cpp.R
@@ -1 +1,2 @@
+testthat::skip_if_not_installed("xml2")
 run_cpp_tests("fastcpd")