diff --git a/src/shared/format-table.c b/src/shared/format-table.c
index a13a198b7a..645e5b9afa 100644
--- a/src/shared/format-table.c
+++ b/src/shared/format-table.c
@@ -2536,6 +2536,9 @@ int table_print_json(Table *t, FILE *f, JsonFormatFlags flags) {
 
         assert(t);
 
+        if (flags & JSON_FORMAT_OFF) /* If JSON output is turned off, use regular output */
+                return table_print(t, f);
+
         if (!f)
                 f = stdout;
 
diff --git a/src/shared/json.c b/src/shared/json.c
index 6beb56cfa0..9a1a1787df 100644
--- a/src/shared/json.c
+++ b/src/shared/json.c
@@ -1766,6 +1766,9 @@ int json_variant_format(JsonVariant *v, JsonFormatFlags flags, char **ret) {
         assert_return(v, -EINVAL);
         assert_return(ret, -EINVAL);
 
+        if (flags & JSON_FORMAT_OFF)
+                return -ENOEXEC;
+
         {
                 _cleanup_fclose_ FILE *f = NULL;
 
diff --git a/src/shared/json.h b/src/shared/json.h
index abc0dccddb..a69e1de5c0 100644
--- a/src/shared/json.h
+++ b/src/shared/json.h
@@ -175,6 +175,7 @@ typedef enum JsonFormatFlags {
         JSON_FORMAT_SSE         = 1 << 6, /* prefix/suffix with W3C server-sent events */
         JSON_FORMAT_SEQ         = 1 << 7, /* prefix/suffix with RFC 7464 application/json-seq */
         JSON_FORMAT_FLUSH       = 1 << 8, /* call fflush() after dumping JSON */
+        JSON_FORMAT_OFF         = 1 << 9, /* make json_variant_format() fail with -ENOEXEC */
 } JsonFormatFlags;
 
 int json_variant_format(JsonVariant *v, JsonFormatFlags flags, char **ret);