diff --git a/fs/btrfs/inode.c b/fs/btrfs/inode.c
index 6633b3dc9314..c4c370b6aae9 100644
--- a/fs/btrfs/inode.c
+++ b/fs/btrfs/inode.c
@@ -673,8 +673,12 @@ static noinline int __cow_file_range_inline(struct btrfs_inode *inode,
 	 * it won't count as data extent, free them directly here.
 	 * And at reserve time, it's always aligned to page size, so
 	 * just free one page here.
+	 *
+	 * If we fallback to non-inline (ret == 1) due to -ENOSPC, then we need
+	 * to keep the data reservation.
 	 */
-	btrfs_qgroup_free_data(inode, NULL, 0, fs_info->sectorsize, NULL);
+	if (ret <= 0)
+		btrfs_qgroup_free_data(inode, NULL, 0, fs_info->sectorsize, NULL);
 	btrfs_free_path(path);
 	btrfs_end_transaction(trans);
 	return ret;