diff --git a/fs/f2fs/namei.c b/fs/f2fs/namei.c
index fd4265c73b0d..c0ca487c6a16 100644
--- a/fs/f2fs/namei.c
+++ b/fs/f2fs/namei.c
@@ -618,6 +618,8 @@ static int f2fs_unlink(struct inode *dir, struct dentry *dentry)
 		goto fail;
 	}
 	f2fs_delete_entry(de, page, dir, inode);
+	f2fs_unlock_op(sbi);
+
 #ifdef CONFIG_UNICODE
 	/* VFS negative dentries are incompatible with Encoding and
 	 * Case-insensitiveness. Eventually we'll want avoid
@@ -628,8 +630,6 @@ static int f2fs_unlink(struct inode *dir, struct dentry *dentry)
 	if (IS_CASEFOLDED(dir))
 		d_invalidate(dentry);
 #endif
-	f2fs_unlock_op(sbi);
-
 	if (IS_DIRSYNC(dir))
 		f2fs_sync_fs(sbi->sb, 1);
 fail: