diff --git a/src/V3DfgPasses.cpp b/src/V3DfgPasses.cpp
index bd192416a..3b08c3121 100644
--- a/src/V3DfgPasses.cpp
+++ b/src/V3DfgPasses.cpp
@@ -188,8 +188,8 @@ void V3DfgPasses::optimize(DfgGraph& dfg, V3DfgOptimizationContext& ctx) {
     if (v3Global.opt.fDfgPeephole()) {
         apply(4, "peephole      ", [&]() { peephole(dfg, ctx.m_peepholeContext); });
         // Without peephole no variables will be redundant, and we just did CSE, so skip these
-        apply(4, "removeVars    ", [&]() { removeVars(dfg, ctx.m_removeVarsContext); });
         apply(4, "cse           ", [&]() { cse(dfg, ctx.m_cseContext1); });
+        apply(4, "removeVars    ", [&]() { removeVars(dfg, ctx.m_removeVarsContext); });
     }
     apply(3, "optimized     ", [&]() { removeUnused(dfg); });
     if (dumpDfg() >= 8) dfg.dumpDotAllVarConesPrefixed(ctx.prefix() + "optimized");