diff --git a/pkgs/tools/text/groff/default.nix b/pkgs/tools/text/groff/default.nix
index 215f7e7d25b8..f6adca208fcf 100644
--- a/pkgs/tools/text/groff/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/tools/text/groff/default.nix
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 { lib, stdenv, fetchurl, fetchpatch, perl
 , enableGhostscript ? false, ghostscript # for postscript and html output
 , enableHtml ? false, psutils, netpbm # for html output
+, enableIconv ? false, iconv
+, enableLibuchardet ? false, libuchardet # for detecting input file encoding in preconv(1)
 , buildPackages
 , autoreconfHook
 , pkg-config
@@ -57,7 +59,9 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
     ++ lib.optional (stdenv.cc.isClang && lib.versionAtLeast stdenv.cc.version "9") bison;
   buildInputs = [ perl bash ]
     ++ lib.optionals enableGhostscript [ ghostscript ]
-    ++ lib.optionals enableHtml [ psutils netpbm ];
+    ++ lib.optionals enableHtml [ psutils netpbm ]
+    ++ lib.optionals enableIconv [ iconv ]
+    ++ lib.optionals enableLibuchardet [ libuchardet ];
 
   # Builds running without a chroot environment may detect the presence
   # of /usr/X11 in the host system, leading to an impure build of the