diff --git a/src/ocrmypdf/__main__.py b/src/ocrmypdf/__main__.py
index 16900ba3..aa4490c4 100755
--- a/src/ocrmypdf/__main__.py
+++ b/src/ocrmypdf/__main__.py
@@ -398,6 +398,11 @@ def check_options_output(options, log):
     if options.output_type == 'pdfa':
         options.output_type = 'pdfa-2'
 
+    if options.output_type == 'pdfa-3' and ghostscript.version() < '9.19':
+        raise MissingDependencyError(
+            "--output-type pdfa-3 requires Ghostscript 9.19 or later"
+        )
+
     lossless_reconstruction = False
     if options.pdf_renderer in ('hocr', 'sandwich'):
         if not any((options.deskew, options.clean_final, options.force_ocr,
diff --git a/tests/test_main.py b/tests/test_main.py
index e08d31b1..c65f3cdd 100644
--- a/tests/test_main.py
+++ b/tests/test_main.py
@@ -953,6 +953,9 @@ def test_sidecar_nonempty(spoof_tesseract_cache, resources, outpdf):
 
 @pytest.mark.parametrize('pdfa_level', ['1', '2', '3'])
 def test_pdfa_n(spoof_tesseract_cache, pdfa_level, resources, outpdf):
+    if pdfa_level == '3' and ghostscript.version() < '9.19':
+        pytest.xfail(reason='Ghostscript >= 9.19 required')
+
     check_ocrmypdf(
         resources / 'ccitt.pdf', outpdf,
         '--output-type', 'pdfa-' + pdfa_level,