diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index d40c309cd4..fe59a1ddfe 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -5,6 +5,9 @@ Bug fixes:
 * install-qa-check.d/05prefix: Fix prefixifying shebang for >= EAPI 7 ebuilds
   (bug #909147).
 
+* emerge: Fix 'no ebuilds available' message always mentioning binpkgs
+  (bug #909853).
+
 * gpkg: Fix timestamp for binary packages (bug #909067).
 
 portage-3.0.49 (2023-06-21)
diff --git a/lib/_emerge/depgraph.py b/lib/_emerge/depgraph.py
index a36ab6351b..1aeae62579 100644
--- a/lib/_emerge/depgraph.py
+++ b/lib/_emerge/depgraph.py
@@ -6456,7 +6456,7 @@ def _show_unsatisfied_dep(
                     cp_exists = True
                     break
 
-            if self._frozen_config.myopts.get("--usepkgonly", "y"):
+            if self._frozen_config.myopts.get("--usepkgonly", False):
                 writemsg(
                     f"\nemerge: there are no binary packages to satisfy {green(xinfo)}.\n",
                     noiselevel=-1,