diff --git a/src/switchroot/ostree-prepare-root.c b/src/switchroot/ostree-prepare-root.c
index 1a0539e1..d7c44e97 100644
--- a/src/switchroot/ostree-prepare-root.c
+++ b/src/switchroot/ostree-prepare-root.c
@@ -639,18 +639,11 @@ main (int argc, char *argv[])
       const char usr_ovl_options[]
           = "lowerdir=" TMP_SYSROOT "/usr,upperdir=.usr-ovl-upper,workdir=.usr-ovl-work";
 
-      /* Except overlayfs barfs if we try to mount it on a read-only
-       * filesystem.  For this use case I think admins are going to be
-       * okay if we remount the rootfs here, rather than waiting until
-       * later boot and `systemd-remount-fs.service`.
-       */
-      if (path_is_on_readonly_fs (TMP_SYSROOT))
-        {
-          if (mount (TMP_SYSROOT, TMP_SYSROOT, NULL, MS_REMOUNT | MS_SILENT, NULL) < 0)
-            err (EXIT_FAILURE, "failed to remount rootfs writable (for overlayfs)");
-        }
-
-      if (mount ("overlay", TMP_SYSROOT "/usr", "overlay", MS_SILENT, usr_ovl_options) < 0)
+      unsigned long mflags = MS_SILENT;
+      // Propagate readonly state
+      if (!sysroot_currently_writable)
+        mflags |= MS_RDONLY;
+      if (mount ("overlay", TMP_SYSROOT "/usr", "overlay", mflags, usr_ovl_options) < 0)
         err (EXIT_FAILURE, "failed to mount /usr overlayfs");
     }
   else if (!using_composefs)