diff --git a/pkgs/build-support/emacs/wrapper.nix b/pkgs/build-support/emacs/wrapper.nix
index e41b1fd6a215..bd733f1b9baf 100644
--- a/pkgs/build-support/emacs/wrapper.nix
+++ b/pkgs/build-support/emacs/wrapper.nix
@@ -80,7 +80,8 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation {
        linkPath "$1" "share/emacs/site-lisp" "share/emacs/site-lisp"
      }
 
-     for pkg in $requires; do
+     # Iterate over the array of inputs (avoiding nix's own interpolation)
+     for pkg in "''${requires[@]}"; do
        linkEmacsPackage $pkg
      done