diff --git a/nixos/modules/services/misc/paperless.nix b/nixos/modules/services/misc/paperless.nix
index 3456098073b3..e564fe3b8317 100644
--- a/nixos/modules/services/misc/paperless.nix
+++ b/nixos/modules/services/misc/paperless.nix
@@ -203,9 +203,12 @@ in
       apply = pkg: pkg.override {
         tesseract5 = pkg.tesseract5.override {
           # always enable detection modules
+          # tesseract fails to build when eng is not present
           enableLanguages = if cfg.settings ? PAPERLESS_OCR_LANGUAGE then
-            [ "equ" "osd" ]
+            lists.unique (
+              [ "equ" "osd" "eng" ]
               ++ lib.splitString "+" cfg.settings.PAPERLESS_OCR_LANGUAGE
+            )
           else null;
         };
       };
diff --git a/nixos/tests/paperless.nix b/nixos/tests/paperless.nix
index 3d834b29958d..3ef291ba7e06 100644
--- a/nixos/tests/paperless.nix
+++ b/nixos/tests/paperless.nix
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ import ./make-test-python.nix ({ lib, ... }: {
       };
       services.paperless.settings = {
         PAPERLESS_DBHOST = "/run/postgresql";
+        PAPERLESS_OCR_LANGUAGE = "deu";
       };
     };
   }; in self;