diff --git a/target/board/BoardConfigEmuCommon.mk b/target/board/BoardConfigEmuCommon.mk
index 617b3c58f0..c871d7eab3 100644
--- a/target/board/BoardConfigEmuCommon.mk
+++ b/target/board/BoardConfigEmuCommon.mk
@@ -20,6 +20,9 @@ BUILD_QEMU_IMAGES := true
 # the GLES renderer disables itself if host GL acceleration isn't available.
 USE_OPENGL_RENDERER := true
 
+# Emulator doesn't support sparse image format.
+TARGET_USERIMAGES_SPARSE_EXT_DISABLED := true
+
 # ~140 MB vendor image. Please adjust system image / vendor image sizes
 # when finalizing them. The partition size needs to be a multiple of image
 # block size: 4096.
diff --git a/target/board/BoardConfigGsiCommon.mk b/target/board/BoardConfigGsiCommon.mk
index eee65f42dd..d4025c3fcd 100644
--- a/target/board/BoardConfigGsiCommon.mk
+++ b/target/board/BoardConfigGsiCommon.mk
@@ -11,11 +11,6 @@ TARGET_NO_KERNEL := true
 # This flag is set by mainline but isn't desired for GSI.
 BOARD_USES_SYSTEM_OTHER_ODEX :=
 
-# GSIs are historically released in sparse format.
-# Some vendors' bootloaders don't work properly with raw format images. So
-# we explicit specify this need below (even though it's the current default).
-TARGET_USERIMAGES_SPARSE_EXT_DISABLED := false
-
 # system.img is always ext4 with sparse option
 # GSI also includes make_f2fs to support userdata parition in f2fs
 # for some devices