diff --git a/src/cmd/go/internal/work/gc.go b/src/cmd/go/internal/work/gc.go
index 0df6629f41..3d09f69fcc 100644
--- a/src/cmd/go/internal/work/gc.go
+++ b/src/cmd/go/internal/work/gc.go
@@ -316,6 +316,12 @@ func (gcToolchain) symabis(b *Builder, a *Action, sfiles []string) (string, erro
 
 		// Filter out just the symbol refs and append them to
 		// the symabis file.
+		if cfg.BuildN {
+			// -x will print the lines from symabis2 that are actually appended
+			// to symabis. With -n, we don't know what those lines will be.
+			b.Showcmd("", `grep '^ref' <%s | grep -v '^ref\s*""\.' >>%s`, symabis2, a.Objdir+"symabis")
+			continue
+		}
 		abis2, err := ioutil.ReadFile(symabis2)
 		if err != nil {
 			return "", err
diff --git a/src/cmd/go/testdata/script/build_runtime_gcflags.txt b/src/cmd/go/testdata/script/build_runtime_gcflags.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..dc0767c569
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/cmd/go/testdata/script/build_runtime_gcflags.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+# This test verifies the standard library (specifically runtime/internal/atomic)
+# can be built with -gcflags when -n is given. See golang.org/issue/26092.
+go build -n -gcflags=all='-l' std
+stderr 'compile.* -l .* runtime/internal/atomic'