diff --git a/target/arm/helper.c b/target/arm/helper.c
index d2ec2c5351..b7b6887241 100644
--- a/target/arm/helper.c
+++ b/target/arm/helper.c
@@ -6340,17 +6340,18 @@ void hw_watchpoint_update(ARMCPU *cpu, int n)
         int bas = extract64(wcr, 5, 8);
         int basstart;
 
-        if (bas == 0) {
-            /* This must act as if the watchpoint is disabled */
-            return;
-        }
-
         if (extract64(wvr, 2, 1)) {
             /* Deprecated case of an only 4-aligned address. BAS[7:4] are
              * ignored, and BAS[3:0] define which bytes to watch.
              */
             bas &= 0xf;
         }
+
+        if (bas == 0) {
+            /* This must act as if the watchpoint is disabled */
+            return;
+        }
+
         /* The BAS bits are supposed to be programmed to indicate a contiguous
          * range of bytes. Otherwise it is CONSTRAINED UNPREDICTABLE whether
          * we fire for each byte in the word/doubleword addressed by the WVR.