Index: usr.sbin/freebsd-update/freebsd-update.sh
===================================================================
--- usr.sbin/freebsd-update/freebsd-update.sh
+++ usr.sbin/freebsd-update/freebsd-update.sh
@@ -1215,6 +1215,15 @@
 	touch tINDEX.present
 }
 
+# Fetch compare upstream tag (tag.new) to tag on disk
+fetch_compare_new_tag_to_current_tag () {
+	if [ -f tag.new -a -f tag ] && cmp -s tag.new tag; then
+		return 0
+	else
+		return 1
+	fi
+}
+
 # Check that we have a public key with an appropriate hash, or
 # fetch the key if it doesn't exist.  Returns 1 if the key has
 # not yet been fetched.
@@ -2200,6 +2209,14 @@
 	done
 	fetch_tagsanity || return 1
 
+	# If there are no updates upstream there is no need for further
+	# processing (except forced fetch).
+	if [ $FORCEFETCH -eq 0 ] && fetch_compare_new_tag_to_current_tag; then
+		echo "No updates are available to fetch."
+		rm -f tag.new
+		return 0
+	fi
+
 	# Fetch the latest INDEX-NEW and INDEX-OLD files.
 	fetch_metadata INDEX-NEW INDEX-OLD || return 1
 
@@ -3395,7 +3412,7 @@
 	TMPFILE=`mktemp /tmp/freebsd-update.XXXXXX` || exit 1
 	finalize_components_config ${COMPONENTS} >> ${TMPFILE}
 	if ! fetch_run >> ${TMPFILE} ||
-	    ! grep -q "No updates needed" ${TMPFILE} ||
+	    ! grep -q -E "(^No updates are available to fetch\.$|No updates needed)" ${TMPFILE} ||
 	    [ ${VERBOSELEVEL} = "debug" ]; then
 		mail -s "`hostname` security updates" ${MAILTO} < ${TMPFILE}
 	fi