diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 9d7b870..a5c9ca5 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -10,6 +10,8 @@ vm-sdk is designed to be used interactively from a terminal.
 It requires the following packages to be installed in addition to the
 [dependencies required for libdevuansdk](https://github.com/dyne/libdevuansdk/blob/master/README.md#requirements).
 
+`sudo` permissions are required for the user that is running the build.
+
 ```
 virtualbox vagrant qemu qemu-utils
 ```