diff --git a/subprojects/gstreamer-vaapi/gst/vaapi/gstvaapi.c b/subprojects/gstreamer-vaapi/gst/vaapi/gstvaapi.c
index 1113023390..1fd9762848 100644
--- a/subprojects/gstreamer-vaapi/gst/vaapi/gstvaapi.c
+++ b/subprojects/gstreamer-vaapi/gst/vaapi/gstvaapi.c
@@ -194,6 +194,9 @@ plugin_init (GstPlugin * plugin)
   if (!gst_vaapi_driver_is_whitelisted (display))
     goto unsupported_driver;
 
+  gst_plugin_add_status_warning (plugin,
+      "GStreamer VA-API is deprecated in favor of GstVA in gst-plugins-bad");
+
   _gst_vaapi_has_video_processing =
       gst_vaapi_display_has_video_processing (display);
 
diff --git a/subprojects/gstreamer-vaapi/meson.build b/subprojects/gstreamer-vaapi/meson.build
index e0f8cd19ff..bc8d8aad05 100644
--- a/subprojects/gstreamer-vaapi/meson.build
+++ b/subprojects/gstreamer-vaapi/meson.build
@@ -217,6 +217,8 @@ subdir('gst')
 subdir('tests')
 subdir('docs')
 
+warning ('GStreamer VA-API is deprecated in favor of GstVA in gst-plugins-bad')
+
 # Set release date
 if gst_version_nano == 0
   extract_release_date = find_program('scripts/extract-release-date-from-doap-file.py')