diff --git a/xarray/backends/netCDF4_.py b/xarray/backends/netCDF4_.py
index 7b37b1a573a..f8b3192a4b9 100644
--- a/xarray/backends/netCDF4_.py
+++ b/xarray/backends/netCDF4_.py
@@ -232,11 +232,11 @@ def _extract_nc4_variable_encoding(
         "shuffle",
         "_FillValue",
         "dtype",
+        "compression",
     }
     if lsd_okay:
         valid_encodings.add("least_significant_digit")
     if h5py_okay:
-        valid_encodings.add("compression")
         valid_encodings.add("compression_opts")
 
     if not raise_on_invalid and encoding.get("chunksizes") is not None:
diff --git a/xarray/tests/test_backends.py b/xarray/tests/test_backends.py
index a477aea9d62..81417f8a06a 100644
--- a/xarray/tests/test_backends.py
+++ b/xarray/tests/test_backends.py
@@ -5068,6 +5068,12 @@ def test_extract_nc4_variable_encoding(self) -> None:
         encoding = _extract_nc4_variable_encoding(var, unlimited_dims=("x",))
         assert {} == encoding
 
+    @requires_netCDF4
+    def test_extract_nc4_variable_encoding_netcdf4(self, monkeypatch):
+        # New netCDF4 1.6.0 compression argument.
+        var = xr.Variable(("x",), [1, 2, 3], {}, {"compression": "szlib"})
+        _extract_nc4_variable_encoding(var, backend="netCDF4", raise_on_invalid=True)
+
     def test_extract_h5nc_encoding(self) -> None:
         # not supported with h5netcdf (yet)
         var = xr.Variable(("x",), [1, 2, 3], {}, {"least_sigificant_digit": 2})