diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 33b55e91700..788fb33853a 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -916,7 +916,7 @@ CHANGES WITH 226:
           available, systemd will fall back to the legacy cgroup
           hierarchy setup, as before. Host system and containers can
           mix and match legacy and unified hierarchies as they
-          wish. nspawn understands the $UNIFIED_CROUP_HIERARCHY
+          wish. nspawn understands the $UNIFIED_CGROUP_HIERARCHY
           environment variable to individually select the hierarchy to
           use for executed containers. By default, nspawn will use the
           unified hierarchy for the containers if the host uses the
diff --git a/test/test-functions b/test/test-functions
index e2e07a833c3..5f95a8129ef 100644
--- a/test/test-functions
+++ b/test/test-functions
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ KERNEL_MODS="/lib/modules/$KERNEL_VER/"
 QEMU_TIMEOUT="${QEMU_TIMEOUT:-infinity}"
 NSPAWN_TIMEOUT="${NSPAWN_TIMEOUT:-infinity}"
 FSTYPE="${FSTYPE:-ext3}"
+UNIFIED_CGROUP_HIERARCHY="${UNIFIED_CGROUP_HIERARCHY:-no}"
 
 if ! ROOTLIBDIR=$(pkg-config --variable=systemdutildir systemd); then
     echo "WARNING! Cannot determine rootlibdir from pkg-config, assuming /usr/lib/systemd" >&2
@@ -70,6 +71,7 @@ init=$ROOTLIBDIR/systemd \
 ro \
 console=ttyS0 \
 selinux=0 \
+systemd.unified_cgroup_hierarchy=$UNIFIED_CGROUP_HIERARCHY \
 $KERNEL_APPEND \
 "
 
@@ -101,6 +103,9 @@ run_nspawn() {
     if [[ "$NSPAWN_TIMEOUT" != "infinity" ]]; then
         _nspawn_cmd="timeout --foreground $NSPAWN_TIMEOUT $_nspawn_cmd"
     fi
+
+    _nspawn_cmd="env UNIFIED_CGROUP_HIERARCHY=$UNIFIED_CGROUP_HIERARCHY $_nspawn_cmd"
+
     set -x
     $_nspawn_cmd
 }