diff --git a/arch/arm/boot/compressed/atags_to_fdt.c b/arch/arm/boot/compressed/atags_to_fdt.c
index 8452753efebe..31927d2fe297 100644
--- a/arch/arm/boot/compressed/atags_to_fdt.c
+++ b/arch/arm/boot/compressed/atags_to_fdt.c
@@ -15,7 +15,8 @@ static int node_offset(void *fdt, const char *node_path)
 {
 	int offset = fdt_path_offset(fdt, node_path);
 	if (offset == -FDT_ERR_NOTFOUND)
-		offset = fdt_add_subnode(fdt, 0, node_path);
+		/* Add the node to root if not found, dropping the leading '/' */
+		offset = fdt_add_subnode(fdt, 0, node_path + 1);
 	return offset;
 }