diff --git a/ceph.spec.in b/ceph.spec.in
index c14dd04b2a9..d13fd49d207 100644
--- a/ceph.spec.in
+++ b/ceph.spec.in
@@ -1469,13 +1469,12 @@ install -m 644 -D monitoring/ceph-mixin/prometheus_alerts.yml %{buildroot}/etc/p
 %py_byte_compile %{__python3} %{buildroot}%{python3_sitelib}
 %endif
 
+%clean
+rm -rf %{buildroot}
 # built binaries are no longer necessary at this point,
 # but are consuming ~17GB of disk in the build environment
 rm -rf %{_vpath_builddir}
 
-%clean
-rm -rf %{buildroot}
-
 #################################################################################
 # files and systemd scriptlets
 #################################################################################