diff --git a/src/qemu/qemu_migration.c b/src/qemu/qemu_migration.c
index cfc4a63190..cb408ac06e 100644
--- a/src/qemu/qemu_migration.c
+++ b/src/qemu/qemu_migration.c
@@ -458,7 +458,7 @@ qemuMigrationCookieXMLParseStr(qemuMigrationCookiePtr mig,
 {
     xmlDocPtr doc = NULL;
     xmlXPathContextPtr ctxt = NULL;
-    int ret;
+    int ret = -1;
 
     VIR_DEBUG("xml=%s", NULLSTR(xml));