diff --git a/perl/Git/SVN/Migration.pm b/perl/Git/SVN/Migration.pm
index ed96ac593e..65f6b393a0 100644
--- a/perl/Git/SVN/Migration.pm
+++ b/perl/Git/SVN/Migration.pm
@@ -91,11 +91,6 @@ sub migrate_from_v1 {
 	# just in case somebody used 'svn' as their $id at some point...
 	return $migrated if -d $svn_dir && ! -f "$svn_dir/info/url";
 
-	print STDERR "Migrating from a git-svn v1 layout...\n";
-	mkpath([$svn_dir]);
-	print STDERR "Data from a previous version of git-svn exists, but\n\t",
-	             "$svn_dir\n\t(required for this version ",
-	             "($::VERSION) of git-svn) does not exist.\n";
 	my ($fh, $ctx) = command_output_pipe(qw/rev-parse --symbolic --all/);
 	while (<$fh>) {
 		my $x = $_;
@@ -106,6 +101,15 @@ sub migrate_from_v1 {
 		next unless -f $info_url;
 		my $u = eval { ::file_to_s($info_url) };
 		next unless $u;
+		unless ($migrated) {
+			print STDERR "Migrating from a git-svn v1 layout...\n";
+			mkpath([$svn_dir]);
+			print STDERR "Data from a previous version of ",
+				     "git-svn exists, but\n\t",
+				     "$svn_dir\n\t(required for this version ",
+				     "($::VERSION) of git-svn) does not ",
+				     "exist.\n";
+		}
 		my $dn = dirname("$svn_dir/$x");
 		mkpath([$dn]) unless -d $dn;
 		if ($x eq 'svn') { # they used 'svn' as GIT_SVN_ID:
@@ -127,7 +131,7 @@ sub migrate_from_v1 {
 		$migrated++;
 	}
 	command_close_pipe($fh, $ctx);
-	print STDERR "Done migrating from a git-svn v1 layout\n";
+	print STDERR "Done migrating from a git-svn v1 layout\n" if $migrated;
 	$migrated;
 }
 
diff --git a/t/t9107-git-svn-migrate.sh b/t/t9107-git-svn-migrate.sh
index aa908bbc2f..49e4f4774b 100755
--- a/t/t9107-git-svn-migrate.sh
+++ b/t/t9107-git-svn-migrate.sh
@@ -3,6 +3,13 @@
 test_description='git svn metadata migrations from previous versions'
 . ./lib-git-svn.sh
 
+test_expect_success 'migrate is silent when there is nothing to migrate' '
+	git svn migrate 2>err.log &&
+	test_grep ! "Migrating from a git-svn v1 layout" err.log &&
+	test_grep ! "Data from a previous version of git-svn exists" err.log &&
+	! test -d "$GIT_DIR"/svn
+	'
+
 test_expect_success 'setup old-looking metadata' '
 	cp "$GIT_DIR"/config "$GIT_DIR"/config-old-git-svn &&
 	mkdir import &&