diff --git a/src/init.cpp b/src/init.cpp
index 9afd76d62d4..7b13296f7c4 100644
--- a/src/init.cpp
+++ b/src/init.cpp
@@ -217,7 +217,7 @@ void Shutdown(NodeContext& node)
     node.banman.reset();
     node.addrman.reset();
 
-    if (node.mempool && node.mempool->IsLoaded() && node.args->GetArg("-persistmempool", DEFAULT_PERSIST_MEMPOOL)) {
+    if (node.mempool && node.mempool->IsLoaded() && node.args->GetBoolArg("-persistmempool", DEFAULT_PERSIST_MEMPOOL)) {
         DumpMempool(*node.mempool);
     }
 
diff --git a/src/validation.cpp b/src/validation.cpp
index 26333d7026c..e060899ea02 100644
--- a/src/validation.cpp
+++ b/src/validation.cpp
@@ -3822,7 +3822,7 @@ bool CChainState::LoadBlockIndexDB()
 void CChainState::LoadMempool(const ArgsManager& args)
 {
     if (!m_mempool) return;
-    if (args.GetArg("-persistmempool", DEFAULT_PERSIST_MEMPOOL)) {
+    if (args.GetBoolArg("-persistmempool", DEFAULT_PERSIST_MEMPOOL)) {
         ::LoadMempool(*m_mempool, *this);
     }
     m_mempool->SetIsLoaded(!ShutdownRequested());
diff --git a/test/functional/mempool_persist.py b/test/functional/mempool_persist.py
index 752b925b926..1ae95fced34 100755
--- a/test/functional/mempool_persist.py
+++ b/test/functional/mempool_persist.py
@@ -141,7 +141,7 @@ class MempoolPersistTest(BitcoinTestFramework):
         self.log.debug("Stop nodes, make node1 use mempool.dat from node0. Verify it has 6 transactions")
         os.rename(mempooldat0, mempooldat1)
         self.stop_nodes()
-        self.start_node(1, extra_args=[])
+        self.start_node(1, extra_args=["-persistmempool"])
         assert self.nodes[1].getmempoolinfo()["loaded"]
         assert_equal(len(self.nodes[1].getrawmempool()), 6)