diff --git a/pandas/tests/io/parser/common/test_common_basic.py b/pandas/tests/io/parser/common/test_common_basic.py
index 511db2c6a33d8..3680273f5e98a 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/io/parser/common/test_common_basic.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/io/parser/common/test_common_basic.py
@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@
 
 from pandas._config import using_string_dtype
 
+from pandas.compat import HAS_PYARROW
 from pandas.errors import (
     EmptyDataError,
     ParserError,
@@ -766,7 +767,7 @@ def test_dict_keys_as_names(all_parsers):
     tm.assert_frame_equal(result, expected)
 
 
-@pytest.mark.xfail(using_string_dtype(), reason="TODO(infer_string)")
+@pytest.mark.xfail(using_string_dtype() and HAS_PYARROW, reason="TODO(infer_string)")
 @xfail_pyarrow  # UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xed in position 0
 def test_encoding_surrogatepass(all_parsers):
     # GH39017