diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 795d395a..c25d5586 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -28,6 +28,8 @@
 
 * Missing dependencies in meson, causing heavily parallelized builds
   to fail.
+* Background color when alpha < 1.0 being wrong
+  (https://codeberg.org/dnkl/foot/issues/249).
 
 
 ### Security
diff --git a/render.c b/render.c
index df22dd6e..f66e277e 100644
--- a/render.c
+++ b/render.c
@@ -213,14 +213,10 @@ attrs_to_font(const struct terminal *term, const struct attributes *attrs)
 static inline pixman_color_t
 color_hex_to_pixman_with_alpha(uint32_t color, uint16_t alpha)
 {
-    if (alpha == 0)
-        return (pixman_color_t){0, 0, 0, 0};
-
-    int alpha_div = 0xffff / alpha;
     return (pixman_color_t){
-        .red =   ((color >> 16 & 0xff) | (color >> 8 & 0xff00)) / alpha_div,
-        .green = ((color >>  8 & 0xff) | (color >> 0 & 0xff00)) / alpha_div,
-        .blue =  ((color >>  0 & 0xff) | (color << 8 & 0xff00)) / alpha_div,
+        .red =   ((color >> 16 & 0xff) | (color >> 8 & 0xff00)) * alpha / 0xffff,
+        .green = ((color >>  8 & 0xff) | (color >> 0 & 0xff00)) * alpha / 0xffff,
+        .blue =  ((color >>  0 & 0xff) | (color << 8 & 0xff00)) * alpha / 0xffff,
         .alpha = alpha,
     };
 }