diff --git a/docs/news.xml b/docs/news.xml
index 649350a904..8ef9da78b7 100644
--- a/docs/news.xml
+++ b/docs/news.xml
@@ -71,6 +71,15 @@
       </change>
     </section>
     <section title="Bug fixes">
+      <change>
+        <summary>
+          qemu: Create memory_backing_dir on startup
+        </summary>
+        <description>
+          Libvirt's policy is that directories are created on startup if
+          they don't exist. We've missed this one.
+        </description>
+      </change>
     </section>
   </release>
   <release version="v3.3.0" date="2017-05-05">
diff --git a/src/qemu/qemu_driver.c b/src/qemu/qemu_driver.c
index 67f54282a0..fcab7ddf82 100644
--- a/src/qemu/qemu_driver.c
+++ b/src/qemu/qemu_driver.c
@@ -706,6 +706,11 @@ qemuStateInitialize(bool privileged,
                              cfg->nvramDir);
         goto error;
     }
+    if (virFileMakePath(cfg->memoryBackingDir) < 0) {
+        virReportSystemError(errno, _("Failed to create memory backing dir %s"),
+                             cfg->memoryBackingDir);
+        goto error;
+    }
 
     qemu_driver->qemuImgBinary = virFindFileInPath("qemu-img");
 
@@ -830,6 +835,13 @@ qemuStateInitialize(bool privileged,
                                  (int) cfg->group);
             goto error;
         }
+        if (chown(cfg->memoryBackingDir, cfg->user, cfg->group) < 0) {
+            virReportSystemError(errno,
+                                 _("unable to set ownership of '%s' to %d:%d"),
+                                 cfg->memoryBackingDir, (int) cfg->user,
+                                 (int) cfg->group);
+            goto error;
+        }
 
         run_uid = cfg->user;
         run_gid = cfg->group;