diff --git a/src/builder-manifest.c b/src/builder-manifest.c
index 9304587d..293e2f8e 100644
--- a/src/builder-manifest.c
+++ b/src/builder-manifest.c
@@ -1477,13 +1477,16 @@ builder_manifest_get_runtime_version (BuilderManifest *self)
   return self->runtime_version ? self->runtime_version : "master";
 }
 
+/* default-branch can only be set through the cli, where branch
+ * is extracted from the manifest. As such the intended behavior
+ * is that the cli arguments should always override the branch
+ * set in the manifest, so your manifest can set the branch
+ * but you are still able to do --default-branch=test-build
+ */
 const char *
 builder_manifest_get_branch (BuilderManifest *self,
                              BuilderContext  *context)
 {
-  if (self->branch)
-    return self->branch;
-
   if (context &&
       builder_context_get_default_branch (context))
     return builder_context_get_default_branch (context);
@@ -1491,6 +1494,9 @@ builder_manifest_get_branch (BuilderManifest *self,
   if (self->default_branch)
     return self->default_branch;
 
+  if (self->branch)
+    return self->branch;
+
   return "master";
 }
 
diff --git a/tests/test-default-branch.json b/tests/test-default-branch.json
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..d3422fdb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/test-default-branch.json
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+{
+    "id": "org.test.DefaultBranch",
+    "runtime": "org.gnome.Platform",
+    "sdk": "org.gnome.Sdk",
+    "command": "hello",
+    "branch": "something",
+    "modules": [
+        {
+            "name": "install_test",
+            "buildsystem": "simple",
+            "build-commands": [
+                "mkdir -p ${FLATPAK_DEST}/bin",
+                "cp -vf hello.sh ${FLATPAK_DEST}/bin/hello"
+            ],
+            "sources": [
+                {
+                    "type": "script",
+                    "dest-filename": "hello.sh",
+                    "commands": [
+                        "echo \"Hello world, from a sandbox\""
+                    ]
+                }
+            ]
+        }
+    ]
+}