diff --git a/debian/compat b/debian/compat
deleted file mode 100644
index 48082f7..0000000
--- a/debian/compat
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-12
diff --git a/debian/control b/debian/control
index 20427a6..8a17263 100644
--- a/debian/control
+++ b/debian/control
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 Maintainer: Debian Java Maintainers <pkg-java-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>
 Uploaders: tony mancill <tmancill@debian.org>,
  gregor herrmann <gregoa@debian.org>
-Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 12~)
+Build-Depends: debhelper-compat (= 12)
 Build-Depends-Indep: ant, default-jdk, libjgraph-java, maven-repo-helper
 Standards-Version: 3.9.8
 Homepage: https://github.com/tdbear/microba