diff --git a/rustfmt.toml b/rustfmt.toml
index e292a3107420..e6cc298ec44c 100644
--- a/rustfmt.toml
+++ b/rustfmt.toml
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ ignore = [
 
     # tests for now are not formatted, as they are sometimes pretty-printing constrained
     # (and generally rustfmt can move around comments in UI-testing incompatible ways)
-    "tests",
+    "/tests/",
 
     # do not format submodules
     # FIXME: sync submodule list with tidy/bootstrap/etc