diff --git a/pkgs/development/tools/analysis/nix-linter/default.nix b/pkgs/development/tools/analysis/nix-linter/default.nix
index 138933ebb57f..dea2fd895f15 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/tools/analysis/nix-linter/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/tools/analysis/nix-linter/default.nix
@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 { lib
 , mkDerivation
 , fetchFromGitHub
-, fetchpatch
 , fixplate
 , tasty
 , tasty-hunit
@@ -37,13 +36,10 @@ mkDerivation rec {
   executableHaskellDepends = [ streamly mtl path pretty-terminal text base aeson cmdargs containers hnix bytestring path-io ];
   testHaskellDepends = [ tasty tasty-hunit tasty-th ];
 
-  patches = [
-    # raise upper bound on hnix https://github.com/Synthetica9/nix-linter/pull/46
-    (fetchpatch {
-      url = "https://github.com/Synthetica9/nix-linter/commit/b406024e525977b3c69d78d6a94a683e2ded121f.patch";
-      sha256 = "0viwbprslcmy70bxy3v27did79nqhlc0jcx4kp0lycswaccvnp1j";
-    })
-  ];
+  # Relax upper bound on hnix https://github.com/Synthetica9/nix-linter/pull/46
+  postPatch = ''
+    substituteInPlace nix-linter.cabal --replace "hnix >=0.8 && < 0.11" "hnix >=0.8"
+  '';
 
   description = "Linter for Nix(pkgs), based on hnix";
   homepage = "https://github.com/Synthetica9/nix-linter";