diff --git a/mkosi.conf b/mkosi.conf
index d6bf53ee46..0f2705f5fc 100644
--- a/mkosi.conf
+++ b/mkosi.conf
@@ -37,6 +37,7 @@ KernelCommandLine=systemd.crash_shell
                   SYSTEMD_ENABLE_LOG_CONTEXT=yes
 
 [Host]
+Credentials=journal.storage=persistent
 @Incremental=yes
 @RuntimeBuildSources=yes
 @QemuSmp=2
diff --git a/mkosi.images/system/mkosi.extra/usr/lib/systemd/journald.conf.d/50-persistent.conf b/mkosi.images/system/mkosi.extra/usr/lib/systemd/journald.conf.d/50-persistent.conf
deleted file mode 100644
index 2f953290d3..0000000000
--- a/mkosi.images/system/mkosi.extra/usr/lib/systemd/journald.conf.d/50-persistent.conf
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,8 +0,0 @@
-# SPDX-License-Identifier: LGPL-2.1-or-later
-
-# We only ship /usr in the image so /var/log/journal won't exist on boot which means systemd-journald won't
-# persist any logs as the default Storage= setting is "auto". We can't create /var/log/journal using tmpfiles
-# as systemd-journal-flush.service runs before systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service so instead we explicitly set
-# Storage= to persistent to have systemd-journald create /var/log/journal itself.
-[Journal]
-Storage=persistent
diff --git a/test/integration-test-wrapper.py b/test/integration-test-wrapper.py
index 2d2fba25eb..1e003342df 100755
--- a/test/integration-test-wrapper.py
+++ b/test/integration-test-wrapper.py
@@ -110,6 +110,7 @@ def main():
             f"SYSTEMD_UNIT_PATH=/usr/lib/systemd/tests/testdata/testsuite-{args.test_number}.units:/usr/lib/systemd/tests/testdata/units:",
             f"systemd.unit={test_unit}",
         ]),
+        '--credential', f"journal.storage={'persistent' if sys.stderr.isatty() else 'runtime'}" ,
         *args.mkosi_args,
         'qemu',
         *(['-no-reboot'] if not sys.stderr.isatty() else [])