diff --git a/test/pyxtest/README.md b/test/pyxtest/README.md
index 0c1eec7ca..e7684de04 100644
--- a/test/pyxtest/README.md
+++ b/test/pyxtest/README.md
@@ -4,8 +4,8 @@ This is a pytest-based test suite that launches X servers and sends crafted
 protocol requests to verify that security vulnerabilities and other bugs
 are properly handled.
 
-It can be run against Xvfb, Xwayland, or Xorg but the latter is potentially
-flaky and requires some setup outside the test suite. The test suite
+It can be run against Xvfb, Xwayland, or Xorg but the latter typically
+requires root and/or some setup outside the test suite. The test suite
 uses both AddressSanitizer (ASAN) and valgrind for detecting
 memory errors such as out-of-bounds reads/writes and use-after-free.
 
diff --git a/test/pyxtest/conftest.py b/test/pyxtest/conftest.py
index 1f49a7da0..cf8bf141d 100644
--- a/test/pyxtest/conftest.py
+++ b/test/pyxtest/conftest.py
@@ -173,6 +173,9 @@ def _start_server(request, server_type, log_file=None):
     is set in the environment (typically by meson when the server is
     built with ``-Db_sanitize=address``).
     """
+    if server_type == "xorg" and os.geteuid() != 0:
+        pytest.skip("Xorg requires root to access /dev/tty0 and GPU devices")
+
     use_valgrind = (
         request.config.getoption("--valgrind")
         or request.node.get_closest_marker("valgrind") is not None