diff --git a/src/libstore/build/local-derivation-goal.cc b/src/libstore/build/local-derivation-goal.cc
index 53e6998e8..068b47f93 100644
--- a/src/libstore/build/local-derivation-goal.cc
+++ b/src/libstore/build/local-derivation-goal.cc
@@ -909,9 +909,12 @@ void LocalDerivationGoal::startBuilder()
 
             /* Drop additional groups here because we can't do it
                after we've created the new user namespace. */
-            if (settings.dropSupplementaryGroups)
-                if (setgroups(0, 0) == -1)
-                    throw SysError("setgroups failed. Set the drop-supplementary-groups option to false to skip this step.");
+            if (setgroups(0, 0) == -1) {
+                if (errno != EPERM)
+                    throw SysError("setgroups failed");
+                if (settings.requireDropSupplementaryGroups)
+                    throw Error("setgroups failed. Set the require-drop-supplementary-groups option to false to skip this step.");
+            }
 
             ProcessOptions options;
             options.cloneFlags = CLONE_NEWPID | CLONE_NEWNS | CLONE_NEWIPC | CLONE_NEWUTS | CLONE_PARENT | SIGCHLD;
diff --git a/src/libstore/globals.hh b/src/libstore/globals.hh
index a19b43086..dbabf116a 100644
--- a/src/libstore/globals.hh
+++ b/src/libstore/globals.hh
@@ -524,7 +524,7 @@ public:
     Setting<bool> sandboxFallback{this, true, "sandbox-fallback",
         "Whether to disable sandboxing when the kernel doesn't allow it."};
 
-    Setting<bool> dropSupplementaryGroups{this, getuid() == 0, "drop-supplementary-groups",
+    Setting<bool> requireDropSupplementaryGroups{this, true, "require-drop-supplementary-groups",
         R"(
           Whether to drop supplementary groups when building with sandboxing.
           This is normally a good idea if we are root and have the capability to
diff --git a/tests/supplementary-groups.sh b/tests/supplementary-groups.sh
index 47debc5e3..47c6ef605 100644
--- a/tests/supplementary-groups.sh
+++ b/tests/supplementary-groups.sh
@@ -20,14 +20,14 @@ unshare --mount --map-root-user bash <<EOF
   setLocalStore store1
   expectStderr 1 "\${cmd[@]}" | grepQuiet "unable to start build process"
 
-  # Fails with `drop-supplementary-groups`
+  # Fails with `require-drop-supplementary-groups`
   # TODO better error
   setLocalStore store2
-  NIX_CONFIG='drop-supplementary-groups = true' \
+  NIX_CONFIG='require-drop-supplementary-groups = true' \
     expectStderr 1 "\${cmd[@]}" | grepQuiet "unable to start build process"
 
-  # Works without `drop-supplementary-groups`
+  # Works without `require-drop-supplementary-groups`
   setLocalStore store3
-  NIX_CONFIG='drop-supplementary-groups = false' \
+  NIX_CONFIG='require-drop-supplementary-groups = false' \
     "\${cmd[@]}"
 EOF