diff --git a/CODEOWNERS b/CODEOWNERS
index f92fe98ce8..4b9d901771 100644
--- a/CODEOWNERS
+++ b/CODEOWNERS
@@ -49,7 +49,6 @@
 /examples/parallel/                     @ggerganov
 /examples/passkey/                      @ggerganov
 /examples/retrieval/                    @ggerganov
-/examples/save-load-state/              @ggerganov
 /examples/speculative-simple/           @ggerganov
 /examples/speculative/                  @ggerganov
 /ggml/cmake/                            @ggerganov
diff --git a/ci/run.sh b/ci/run.sh
index a8cbd3371d..b096dc23b6 100755
--- a/ci/run.sh
+++ b/ci/run.sh
@@ -461,10 +461,10 @@ function gg_run_qwen3_0_6b {
 
     (time ./bin/llama-imatrix --model ${model_f16} -f ${wiki_test} -ngl 99 -c 1024 -b 512 --chunks 2 ) 2>&1 | tee -a $OUT/${ci}-imatrix.log
 
-    (time ./bin/llama-save-load-state --model ${model_q4_0} -ngl 10 -c 1024 -fa off --no-op-offload) 2>&1 | tee -a $OUT/${ci}-save-load-state.log
-    (time ./bin/llama-save-load-state --model ${model_q4_0} -ngl 10 -c 1024 -fa on  --no-op-offload) 2>&1 | tee -a $OUT/${ci}-save-load-state.log
-    (time ./bin/llama-save-load-state --model ${model_q4_0} -ngl 99 -c 1024 -fa off                ) 2>&1 | tee -a $OUT/${ci}-save-load-state.log
-    (time ./bin/llama-save-load-state --model ${model_q4_0} -ngl 99 -c 1024 -fa on                 ) 2>&1 | tee -a $OUT/${ci}-save-load-state.log
+    (time ./bin/test-save-load-state --model ${model_q4_0} -ngl 10 -c 1024 -fa off --no-op-offload) 2>&1 | tee -a $OUT/${ci}-save-load-state.log
+    (time ./bin/test-save-load-state --model ${model_q4_0} -ngl 10 -c 1024 -fa on  --no-op-offload) 2>&1 | tee -a $OUT/${ci}-save-load-state.log
+    (time ./bin/test-save-load-state --model ${model_q4_0} -ngl 99 -c 1024 -fa off                ) 2>&1 | tee -a $OUT/${ci}-save-load-state.log
+    (time ./bin/test-save-load-state --model ${model_q4_0} -ngl 99 -c 1024 -fa on                 ) 2>&1 | tee -a $OUT/${ci}-save-load-state.log
 
     function check_ppl {
         qnt="$1"
diff --git a/examples/CMakeLists.txt b/examples/CMakeLists.txt
index a29dc707c3..39f802d250 100644
--- a/examples/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/examples/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -27,7 +27,6 @@ else()
     add_subdirectory(parallel)
     add_subdirectory(passkey)
     add_subdirectory(retrieval)
-    add_subdirectory(save-load-state)
     add_subdirectory(simple)
     add_subdirectory(simple-chat)
     add_subdirectory(speculative)
diff --git a/examples/save-load-state/CMakeLists.txt b/examples/save-load-state/CMakeLists.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index 78024672e7..0000000000
--- a/examples/save-load-state/CMakeLists.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,5 +0,0 @@
-set(TARGET llama-save-load-state)
-add_executable(${TARGET} save-load-state.cpp)
-install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
-target_link_libraries(${TARGET} PRIVATE llama-common llama ${CMAKE_THREAD_LIBS_INIT})
-target_compile_features(${TARGET} PRIVATE cxx_std_17)
diff --git a/tests/CMakeLists.txt b/tests/CMakeLists.txt
index 0fdbd39c94..33ae3b303c 100644
--- a/tests/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/tests/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -255,6 +255,10 @@ set_tests_properties(test-state-restore-fragmented PROPERTIES FIXTURES_REQUIRED
 llama_build_and_test(test-recurrent-state-rollback.cpp LABEL "model" ARGS -m "${MODEL_DEST}")
 set_tests_properties(test-recurrent-state-rollback PROPERTIES FIXTURES_REQUIRED test-download-model)
 
+# Test state save/load functionality
+llama_build_and_test(test-save-load-state.cpp LABEL "model" ARGS -m "${MODEL_DEST}")
+set_tests_properties(test-save-load-state PROPERTIES FIXTURES_REQUIRED test-download-model)
+
 if (NOT GGML_BACKEND_DL)
     # these tests use the backends directly and cannot be built with dynamic loading
     llama_build_and_test(test-barrier.cpp)
diff --git a/examples/save-load-state/save-load-state.cpp b/tests/test-save-load-state.cpp
similarity index 100%
rename from examples/save-load-state/save-load-state.cpp
rename to tests/test-save-load-state.cpp