diff --git a/libs/binder/tests/Android.bp b/libs/binder/tests/Android.bp
index e460d2c..92d132f 100644
--- a/libs/binder/tests/Android.bp
+++ b/libs/binder/tests/Android.bp
@@ -605,6 +605,7 @@
     shared_libs: [
         "libbinder",
         "liblog",
+        "libcutils",
         "libutils",
         "libutilscallstack",
         "libbase",
diff --git a/libs/binder/tests/binderAllocationLimits.cpp b/libs/binder/tests/binderAllocationLimits.cpp
index a2ab8ab..55a3916 100644
--- a/libs/binder/tests/binderAllocationLimits.cpp
+++ b/libs/binder/tests/binderAllocationLimits.cpp
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@
 #include <binder/Parcel.h>
 #include <binder/RpcServer.h>
 #include <binder/RpcSession.h>
+#include <cutils/trace.h>
 #include <gtest/gtest.h>
 #include <utils/CallStack.h>
 
@@ -223,5 +224,10 @@
         return 1;
     }
     ::testing::InitGoogleTest(&argc, argv);
+
+    // if tracing is enabled, take in one-time cost
+    (void)ATRACE_INIT();
+    (void)ATRACE_GET_ENABLED_TAGS();
+
     return RUN_ALL_TESTS();
 }