diff --git a/include/app_memory/app_memdomain.h b/include/app_memory/app_memdomain.h
index acbd02e9558..363b695c298 100644
--- a/include/app_memory/app_memdomain.h
+++ b/include/app_memory/app_memdomain.h
@@ -67,6 +67,37 @@ struct z_app_region {
 #define Z_APP_BSS_START(id) data_smem_##id##_bss_start
 #define Z_APP_BSS_SIZE(id) data_smem_##id##_bss_size
 
+/* If a partition is declared with K_APPMEM_PARTITION, but never has any
+ * data assigned to its contents, then no symbols with its prefix will end
+ * up in the symbol table. This prevents gen_app_partitions.py from detecting
+ * that the partition exists, and the linker symbols which specify partition
+ * bounds will not be generated, resulting in build errors.
+ *
+ * What this inline assembly code does is define a symbol with no data.
+ * This should work for all arches that produce ELF binaries, see
+ * https://sourceware.org/binutils/docs/as/Section.html
+ *
+ * We don't know what active flags/type of the pushed section were, so we are
+ * specific: "aw" indicates section is allocatable and writable,
+ * and "@progbits" indicates the section has data.
+ */
+#ifdef CONFIG_ARM
+/* ARM has a quirk in that '@' denotes a comment, so we have to send
+ * %progbits to the assembler instead.
+ */
+#define Z_PROGBITS_SYM	"\%"
+#else
+#define Z_PROGBITS_SYM "@"
+#endif
+
+#define Z_APPMEM_PLACEHOLDER(name) \
+	__asm__ ( \
+		".pushsection " STRINGIFY(K_APP_DMEM_SECTION(name)) \
+			",\"aw\"," Z_PROGBITS_SYM "progbits\n\t" \
+		".global " STRINGIFY(name) "_placeholder\n\t" \
+		STRINGIFY(name) "_placeholder:\n\t" \
+		".popsection\n\t")
+
 /**
  * @brief Define an application memory partition with linker support
  *
@@ -94,8 +125,7 @@ struct z_app_region {
 		.bss_start = &Z_APP_BSS_START(name), \
 		.bss_size = (size_t) &Z_APP_BSS_SIZE(name) \
 	}; \
-	K_APP_BMEM(name) char name##_placeholder;
-
+	Z_APPMEM_PLACEHOLDER(name);
 #else
 
 #define K_APP_BMEM(ptn)
diff --git a/include/misc/libc-hooks.h b/include/misc/libc-hooks.h
index 9d266dc24cb..544c0947905 100644
--- a/include/misc/libc-hooks.h
+++ b/include/misc/libc-hooks.h
@@ -37,12 +37,23 @@ __syscall size_t _zephyr_fwrite(const void *_MLIBC_RESTRICT ptr, size_t size,
 #endif /* CONFIG_NEWLIB_LIBC */
 
 #ifdef CONFIG_USERSPACE
+#if defined(CONFIG_NEWLIB_LIBC) || (CONFIG_MINIMAL_LIBC_MALLOC_ARENA_SIZE > 0)
+#define Z_MALLOC_PARTITION_EXISTS 1
+
 /* Memory partition containing the libc malloc arena */
 extern struct k_mem_partition z_malloc_partition;
+#endif
+
+#if defined(CONFIG_NEWLIB_LIBC) || defined(CONFIG_STACK_CANARIES)
+/* Minimal libc has no globals. We do put the stack canary global in the
+ * libc partition since it is not worth placing in a partition of its own.
+ */
+#define Z_LIBC_PARTITION_EXISTS 1
 
 /* C library globals, except the malloc arena */
 extern struct k_mem_partition z_libc_partition;
 #endif
+#endif /* CONFIG_USERSPACE */
 
 #include <syscalls/libc-hooks.h>
 
diff --git a/kernel/userspace.c b/kernel/userspace.c
index 990d60e0b90..a744728f76e 100644
--- a/kernel/userspace.c
+++ b/kernel/userspace.c
@@ -18,8 +18,11 @@
 #include <init.h>
 #include <stdbool.h>
 #include <app_memory/app_memdomain.h>
+#include <misc/libc-hooks.h>
 
+#ifdef Z_LIBC_PARTITION_EXISTS
 K_APPMEM_PARTITION_DEFINE(z_libc_partition);
+#endif
 
 #define LOG_LEVEL CONFIG_KERNEL_LOG_LEVEL
 #include <logging/log.h>
diff --git a/lib/libc/minimal/source/stdlib/malloc.c b/lib/libc/minimal/source/stdlib/malloc.c
index 4b69f5b7d95..f194f55a5a5 100644
--- a/lib/libc/minimal/source/stdlib/malloc.c
+++ b/lib/libc/minimal/source/stdlib/malloc.c
@@ -16,12 +16,9 @@
 #include <logging/log.h>
 LOG_MODULE_DECLARE(os);
 
-#ifdef CONFIG_USERSPACE
-K_APPMEM_PARTITION_DEFINE(z_malloc_partition);
-#endif
-
 #if (CONFIG_MINIMAL_LIBC_MALLOC_ARENA_SIZE > 0)
 #ifdef CONFIG_USERSPACE
+K_APPMEM_PARTITION_DEFINE(z_malloc_partition);
 #define POOL_SECTION K_APP_DMEM_SECTION(z_malloc_partition)
 #else
 #define POOL_SECTION .data
diff --git a/subsys/testsuite/ztest/src/ztest.c b/subsys/testsuite/ztest/src/ztest.c
index 6036a719f57..155ff1bf314 100644
--- a/subsys/testsuite/ztest/src/ztest.c
+++ b/subsys/testsuite/ztest/src/ztest.c
@@ -301,11 +301,15 @@ void main(void)
 {
 #ifdef CONFIG_USERSPACE
 	struct k_mem_partition *parts[] = {
-		&ztest_mem_partition,
+#ifdef Z_LIBC_PARTITION_EXISTS
 		/* C library globals, stack canary storage, etc */
 		&z_libc_partition,
+#endif
+#ifdef Z_MALLOC_PARTITION_EXISTS
 		/* Required for access to malloc arena */
-		&z_malloc_partition
+		&z_malloc_partition,
+#endif
+		&ztest_mem_partition
 	};
 
 	/* Ztests just have one memory domain with one partition.