diff --git a/contrib/build-linux-wallet.sh b/contrib/build-linux-wallet.sh
index 7428782c..2d917d3e 100755
--- a/contrib/build-linux-wallet.sh
+++ b/contrib/build-linux-wallet.sh
@@ -6,6 +6,9 @@ JOBS="${JOBS:-1}"
 HOST="${HOST:-x86_64-pc-linux-gnu}"
 PREFIX="$ROOT/depends/$HOST"
 BASE_CONFIG="$PREFIX/share/config.site"
+BUILD_HOST="${BUILD_HOST:-$("$ROOT/depends/config.guess")}"
+NATIVE_BIN="$ROOT/depends/build/$BUILD_HOST/bin"
+PROTOC="$NATIVE_BIN/protoc"
 
 require_cmd() {
   if ! command -v "$1" >/dev/null 2>&1; then
@@ -33,6 +36,7 @@ require_cmd ninja
 echo "Building native depends for $HOST..."
 make -C depends HOST="$HOST" NO_QT=0 -j"$JOBS"
 require_path "$BASE_CONFIG"
+require_path "$PROTOC"
 
 if [[ ! -f configure ]]; then
   ./autogen.sh
@@ -44,7 +48,8 @@ CONFIG_SITE="$BASE_CONFIG" ./configure \
   --disable-tests \
   --disable-bench \
   --with-gui=qt6 \
-  --with-qtdbus=no
+  --with-qtdbus=no \
+  --with-protoc-bindir="$NATIVE_BIN"
 
 echo "Building Ubuntu Qt wallet with JOBS=$JOBS..."
 make -j"$JOBS"
diff --git a/doc/build-menu.md b/doc/build-menu.md
index ed5675e7..93604ec6 100644
--- a/doc/build-menu.md
+++ b/doc/build-menu.md
@@ -44,7 +44,8 @@ instead of being required as Ubuntu system development packages.
 
 The Linux Qt wallet option also installs Ubuntu desktop development headers
 needed by Qt's xcb platform plugin, including fontconfig, freetype, xcb, and
-xkbcommon packages.
+xkbcommon packages. The wallet helper uses the matching `protoc` built by
+`depends/`, so a system protobuf compiler is not required.
 
 Defaults
 --------