diff --git a/diskimage_builder/elements/rhel/environment.d/10-rhel-distro-name.bash b/diskimage_builder/elements/rhel/environment.d/10-rhel-distro-name.bash
index 54c2a3de..0fe70cd1 100644
--- a/diskimage_builder/elements/rhel/environment.d/10-rhel-distro-name.bash
+++ b/diskimage_builder/elements/rhel/environment.d/10-rhel-distro-name.bash
@@ -1,7 +1,2 @@
 export DISTRO_NAME=rhel
 export DIB_RELEASE=${DIB_RELEASE:-8}
-
-if [ "${DISTRO_NAME}" = "rhel" ] && [ "${DIB_RELEASE}" = "8" ] && [ "${FS_TYPE}" != "xfs" ]; then
-    echo "ERROR: RHEL8 images file-system type must be set to xfs, FS_TYPE is currently set to" $FS_TYPE
-    exit 1
-fi
diff --git a/diskimage_builder/lib/img-defaults b/diskimage_builder/lib/img-defaults
index a36698e6..1bdf6431 100644
--- a/diskimage_builder/lib/img-defaults
+++ b/diskimage_builder/lib/img-defaults
@@ -17,14 +17,7 @@
 source $_LIB/common-defaults
 # options for create-baremetal-image.sh
 
-if [ "${DISTRO_NAME}" = "rhel" ] && [ "${DIB_RELEASE}" = "8" ]; then
-    # xfs is the default file-system for RHEL8
-    export DEFAULT_FS_TYPE=xfs
-else
-    export DEFAULT_FS_TYPE=ext4
-fi
-
-export FS_TYPE=${FS_TYPE:-$DEFAULT_FS_TYPE}
+export FS_TYPE=${FS_TYPE:-ext4}
 # Used to set the file extension only at this stage.
 export IMAGE_TYPE=${IMAGE_TYPE:-qcow2}
 export IMAGE_NAME=${IMAGE_NAME:-image}