diff --git a/libguile/strings.c b/libguile/strings.c
index 6e1f9c80b..73c0a5ce0 100644
--- a/libguile/strings.c
+++ b/libguile/strings.c
@@ -1472,8 +1472,6 @@ scm_from_stringn (const char *str, size_t len, const char *encoding,
     scm_misc_error ("scm_from_stringn", "NULL string pointer", SCM_EOL);
   if (len == (size_t) -1)
     len = strlen (str);
-  if (len == 0)
-    return scm_nullstr;
 
   if (encoding == NULL)
     {