diff --git a/include/posix/time.h b/include/posix/time.h
index 2838399cd64..169bd73d7d8 100644
--- a/include/posix/time.h
+++ b/include/posix/time.h
@@ -10,14 +10,7 @@
 extern "C" {
 #endif
 
-
-#ifndef __timespec_defined
-#define __timespec_defined
-struct timespec {
-	signed int tv_sec;
-	signed int tv_nsec;
-};
-#endif
+#include <sys/_timespec.h>
 
 /* Older newlib's like 2.{0-2}.0 don't define any newlib version defines, only
  * __NEWLIB_H__ so we use that to decide if itimerspec was defined in
diff --git a/lib/libc/minimal/include/sys/_timespec.h b/lib/libc/minimal/include/sys/_timespec.h
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..5e8364c7726
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/libc/minimal/include/sys/_timespec.h
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+/*
+ * Copyright (c) 2019 Linaro Limited
+ *
+ * SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
+ */
+
+#ifndef ZEPHYR_LIB_LIBC_MINIMAL_INCLUDE_SYS__TIMESPEC_H_
+#define ZEPHYR_LIB_LIBC_MINIMAL_INCLUDE_SYS__TIMESPEC_H_
+
+#include <sys/types.h>
+
+struct timespec {
+	time_t tv_sec;
+	long tv_nsec;
+};
+
+#endif /* ZEPHYR_LIB_LIBC_MINIMAL_INCLUDE_SYS__TIMESPEC_H_ */