The upstream changelog and Debian changelog are the same file; we use dpkg-mergechangelogs to merge them together when upstream makes a new release. This confuses dpkg-genchanges: since our X-1 changelog entry follows upstream's X changelog entry, dpkg-genchanges thinks that this is a revision and we don't need to include the upstream tarball in the upload. This also confuses dgit: it will pass -v to dpkg-genchanges such that upstream's changelog entry is included in the .changes file. To deal with this, pass -sa to dpkg-buildpackage. If using dgit, the magic incantation is: dgit --ch:-sa -v_ [s]build -- Sean Whitton , Mon, 5 Sep 2016 16:59:32 -0700