diff --git a/spec/requests/api/version_spec.rb b/spec/requests/api/version_spec.rb
index 8870d48bbc98d992f55b923658d3a1b2912e9317..7bbf34422b88a728370b5b4978286ac27038fb17 100644
--- a/spec/requests/api/version_spec.rb
+++ b/spec/requests/api/version_spec.rb
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ describe API::Version do
       it 'returns authentication error' do
         get api('/version')
 
-        expect(response).to have_http_status(401)
+        expect(response).to have_gitlab_http_status(401)
       end
     end
 
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ describe API::Version do
       it 'returns the version information' do
         get api('/version', user)
 
-        expect(response).to have_http_status(200)
+        expect(response).to have_gitlab_http_status(200)
         expect(json_response['version']).to eq(Gitlab::VERSION)
         expect(json_response['revision']).to eq(Gitlab::REVISION)
       end
diff --git a/spec/support/matchers/have_gitlab_http_status.rb b/spec/support/matchers/have_gitlab_http_status.rb
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..3198f1b9edd22295b9b7810b539db60fb4bb8202
--- /dev/null
+++ b/spec/support/matchers/have_gitlab_http_status.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+RSpec::Matchers.define :have_gitlab_http_status do |expected|
+  match do |actual|
+    expect(actual).to have_http_status(expected)
+  end
+
+  description do
+    "respond with numeric status code #{expected}"
+  end
+
+  failure_message do |actual|
+    "expected the response to have status code #{expected.inspect}" \
+    " but it was #{actual.response_code}. The response was: #{actual.body}"
+  end
+end