diff --git a/package/usbutils/Config.in b/package/usbutils/Config.in
index a38eb2f2e5..7e7029bbfe 100644
--- a/package/usbutils/Config.in
+++ b/package/usbutils/Config.in
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ config BR2_PACKAGE_USBUTILS
 	depends on BR2_TOOLCHAIN_HAS_THREADS # libusb
 	depends on BR2_TOOLCHAIN_GCC_AT_LEAST_4_9 # libusb
 	depends on BR2_PACKAGE_HAS_UDEV # needs hwdb
+	select BR2_PACKAGE_LIBICONV if !BR2_ENABLE_LOCALE
 	select BR2_PACKAGE_LIBUSB
 	help
 	  USB enumeration utilities
diff --git a/package/usbutils/usbutils.mk b/package/usbutils/usbutils.mk
index 48301fbb9f..1093981360 100644
--- a/package/usbutils/usbutils.mk
+++ b/package/usbutils/usbutils.mk
@@ -11,6 +11,11 @@ USBUTILS_DEPENDENCIES = host-pkgconf libusb udev
 USBUTILS_LICENSE = GPL-2.0+ (utils) GPL-2.0 or GPL-3.0 (lsusb.py)
 USBUTILS_LICENSE_FILES = LICENSES/GPL-2.0-only.txt LICENSES/GPL-3.0-only.txt
 
+ifeq ($(BR2_PACKAGE_LIBICONV),y)
+USBUTILS_DEPENDENCIES += libiconv
+USBUTILS_LDFLAGS += -liconv
+endif
+
 # Nice lsusb.py script only if there's python 3.x
 ifeq ($(BR2_PACKAGE_PYTHON3),)
 define USBUTILS_REMOVE_PYTHON