diff --git a/src/util/system.h b/src/util/system.h
--- a/src/util/system.h
+++ b/src/util/system.h
@@ -103,7 +103,7 @@
  * the datadir if they are not absolute.
  *
  * @param path The path to be conditionally prefixed with datadir.
- * @param net_specific Forwarded to GetDataDir().
+ * @param net_specific Use network specific datadir variant
  * @return The normalized path.
  */
 fs::path AbsPathForConfigVal(const fs::path &path, bool net_specific = true);
@@ -240,6 +240,24 @@
      */
     const fs::path &GetBlocksDirPath() const;
 
+    /**
+     * Get data directory path
+     *
+     * @return Absolute path on success, otherwise an empty path when a
+     * non-directory path would be returned
+     * @post Returned directory path is created unless it is empty
+     */
+    const fs::path &GetDataDirBase() const { return GetDataDirPath(false); }
+
+    /**
+     * Get data directory path with appended network identifier
+     *
+     * @return Absolute path on success, otherwise an empty path when a
+     * non-directory path would be returned
+     * @post Returned directory path is created unless it is empty
+     */
+    const fs::path &GetDataDirNet() const { return GetDataDirPath(true); }
+
     /**
      * Get data directory path
      *
diff --git a/src/util/system.cpp b/src/util/system.cpp
--- a/src/util/system.cpp
+++ b/src/util/system.cpp
@@ -419,7 +419,7 @@
             return path;
         }
     } else {
-        path = GetDataDirPath(false);
+        path = GetDataDirBase();
     }
 
     path /= fs::PathFromString(BaseParams().DataDir());
@@ -511,7 +511,7 @@
         std::string settings = GetArg("-settings", BITCOIN_SETTINGS_FILENAME);
         *filepath = fs::absolute(
             fs::PathFromString(temp ? settings + ".tmp" : settings),
-            GetDataDirPath(/* net_specific= */ true));
+            GetDataDirNet());
     }
     return true;
 }
@@ -833,7 +833,7 @@
 }
 
 const fs::path &GetDataDir(bool fNetSpecific) {
-    return gArgs.GetDataDirPath(fNetSpecific);
+    return fNetSpecific ? gArgs.GetDataDirNet() : gArgs.GetDataDirBase();
 }
 
 bool CheckDataDirOption() {
@@ -1386,7 +1386,8 @@
     if (path.is_absolute()) {
         return path;
     }
-    return fs::absolute(path, GetDataDir(net_specific));
+    return fs::absolute(path, net_specific ? gArgs.GetDataDirNet()
+                                           : gArgs.GetDataDirBase());
 }
 
 void ScheduleBatchPriority() {