diff --git a/src/journal/journal-vacuum.c b/src/journal/journal-vacuum.c
index ace772273..178c8030d 100644
--- a/src/journal/journal-vacuum.c
+++ b/src/journal/journal-vacuum.c
@@ -129,8 +129,9 @@ static void patch_realtime(
 }
 
 static int journal_file_empty(int dir_fd, const char *name) {
-        int fd, r;
+        int r;
         le64_t n_entries;
+        _cleanup_close_ int fd;
 
         fd = openat(dir_fd, name, O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC|O_NOFOLLOW|O_NONBLOCK);
         if (fd < 0)