diff --git a/doc/APIchanges b/doc/APIchanges
index c8c2a219f6..c161618d92 100644
--- a/doc/APIchanges
+++ b/doc/APIchanges
@@ -13,6 +13,12 @@ libavutil:     2015-08-28
 
 API changes, most recent first:
 
+2017-02-01 - xxxxxxx - lavc - avcodec.h
+  Deprecate AVCodecContext.refcounted_frames. This was useful for deprecated
+  API only (avcodec_decode_video2/avcodec_decode_audio4). The new decode APIs
+  (avcodec_send_packet/avcodec_receive_frame) always work with reference
+  counted frames.
+
 2016-xx-xx - xxxxxxx - lavc 57.31.0 - avcodec.h
   Add AVCodecContext.apply_cropping to control whether cropping
   is handled by libavcodec or the caller.
diff --git a/libavcodec/avcodec.h b/libavcodec/avcodec.h
index 18721561d5..8d8fa594aa 100644
--- a/libavcodec/avcodec.h
+++ b/libavcodec/avcodec.h
@@ -2327,7 +2327,7 @@ typedef struct AVCodecContext {
      * - encoding: unused
      * - decoding: set by the caller before avcodec_open2().
      */
-    int refcounted_frames;
+    attribute_deprecated int refcounted_frames;
 
     /* - encoding parameters */
     float qcompress;  ///< amount of qscale change between easy & hard scenes (0.0-1.0)