diff --git a/debian/watch b/debian/watch
index cd322379e4..83c8caa53c 100644
--- a/debian/watch
+++ b/debian/watch
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 version=3
 opts=uversionmangle=s/(\d)[_\.\-\+]?((RC|rc|pre|dev|beta|alpha|b|a)\d*)$/$1~$2/,\
 filenamemangle=s/.*=v(.*)/gitlab-$1.tar.gz/,\
-dversionmangle=s/\+(debian|dfsg|ds|deb|gh)\d*$// \
+dversionmangle=s/(\d)[\+]?(debian|dfsg|ds|deb|gh)\~(rc)*(\d)*$/$1~$3$4/ \
 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/tags .*/archive.tar.gz\?ref=v(.*)