diff --git a/kernel/sched/fair.c b/kernel/sched/fair.c
index 564104227498..3b3dc39671f8 100644
--- a/kernel/sched/fair.c
+++ b/kernel/sched/fair.c
@@ -4509,9 +4509,17 @@ static void __update_cpu_load(struct rq *this_rq, unsigned long this_load,
 
 		/* scale is effectively 1 << i now, and >> i divides by scale */
 
-		old_load = this_rq->cpu_load[i] - tickless_load;
+		old_load = this_rq->cpu_load[i];
 		old_load = decay_load_missed(old_load, pending_updates - 1, i);
-		old_load += tickless_load;
+		if (tickless_load) {
+			old_load -= decay_load_missed(tickless_load, pending_updates - 1, i);
+			/*
+			 * old_load can never be a negative value because a
+			 * decayed tickless_load cannot be greater than the
+			 * original tickless_load.
+			 */
+			old_load += tickless_load;
+		}
 		new_load = this_load;
 		/*
 		 * Round up the averaging division if load is increasing. This