diff --git a/src/system/libroot/add-ons/icu/ICUCollateData.cpp b/src/system/libroot/add-ons/icu/ICUCollateData.cpp
index d300b4551a..b949db290e 100644
--- a/src/system/libroot/add-ons/icu/ICUCollateData.cpp
+++ b/src/system/libroot/add-ons/icu/ICUCollateData.cpp
@@ -113,6 +113,11 @@ ICUCollateData::Strcoll(const char* a, const char* b, int& result)
 status_t
 ICUCollateData::Strxfrm(char* out, const char* in, size_t size, size_t& outSize)
 {
+	if (in == NULL) {
+		outSize = 0;
+		return B_OK;
+	}
+
 	if (fCollator == NULL || strcmp(fPosixLocaleName, "POSIX") == 0) {
 		// handle POSIX here as the collator ICU uses for that (english) is
 		// incompatible in too many ways
@@ -124,11 +129,6 @@ ICUCollateData::Strxfrm(char* out, const char* in, size_t size, size_t& outSize)
 		return B_OK;
 	}
 
-	if (in == NULL) {
-		outSize = 0;
-		return B_OK;
-	}
-
 	UnicodeString unicodeIn;
 	if (_ToUnicodeString(in, unicodeIn) != B_OK)
 		return B_BAD_VALUE;