diff --git a/bfd/ChangeLog b/bfd/ChangeLog
index d760a4a71b..a72e811b1c 100644
--- a/bfd/ChangeLog
+++ b/bfd/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,9 @@
+2021-01-04  Alan Modra  <amodra@gmail.com>
+
+	PR 26741
+	* elfxx-riscv.c (riscv_parse_prefixed_ext): Free subset after
+	calculating subset version length.
+
 2021-01-01  Nicolas Boulenguez  <nicolas@debian.org>
 
 	* xcofflink.c: Correct spelling in comments.
diff --git a/bfd/elfxx-riscv.c b/bfd/elfxx-riscv.c
index 9d7f606995..101e27f820 100644
--- a/bfd/elfxx-riscv.c
+++ b/bfd/elfxx-riscv.c
@@ -1572,8 +1572,8 @@ riscv_parse_prefixed_ext (riscv_parse_subset_t *rps,
       riscv_parse_add_subset (rps, subset,
 			      major_version,
 			      minor_version, FALSE);
-      free (subset);
       p += end_of_version - subset;
+      free (subset);
 
       if (*p != '\0' && *p != '_')
 	{