diff --git a/src/ripple/app/tx/impl/Change.cpp b/src/ripple/app/tx/impl/Change.cpp
index 2ad0940d7..1174f8d39 100644
--- a/src/ripple/app/tx/impl/Change.cpp
+++ b/src/ripple/app/tx/impl/Change.cpp
@@ -604,7 +604,7 @@ Change::activateXahauGenesis()
             hookDef->setFieldVL(sfCreateCode, wasmBytes);
             hookDef->setFieldH256(sfHookSetTxnID,  ctx_.tx.getTransactionID());
             // governance hook is referenced by the l2tables
-            hookDef->setFieldU64(sfReferenceCount, (hookCount == 0 ? tables.size() : 0) + 1);
+            hookDef->setFieldU64(sfReferenceCount, (hookCount++ == 0 ? tables.size() : 0) + 1);
             hookDef->setFieldAmount(sfFee,
                     XRPAmount {hook::computeExecutionFee(result->first)});
             if (result->second > 0)
diff --git a/src/test/app/XahauGenesis_test.cpp b/src/test/app/XahauGenesis_test.cpp
index 1c740fe9c..90e5c4aba 100644
--- a/src/test/app/XahauGenesis_test.cpp
+++ b/src/test/app/XahauGenesis_test.cpp
@@ -170,7 +170,7 @@ struct XahauGenesis_test : public beast::unit_test::suite
 
             auto const govVL = govSLE->getFieldVL(sfCreateCode);
             BEAST_EXPECT(govHash == ripple::sha512Half_s(ripple::Slice(govVL.data(), govVL.size())));
-            BEAST_EXPECT(govSLE->getFieldU64(sfReferenceCount) == 1);
+            BEAST_EXPECT(govSLE->getFieldU64(sfReferenceCount) == 1 + XahauGenesis::L2Membership.size());
             BEAST_EXPECT(govSLE->getFieldH256(sfHookOn) ==
                 ripple::uint256("FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF7FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFBFFFFF"));
             BEAST_EXPECT(govSLE->getFieldH256(sfHookNamespace) ==