diff --git a/includes/errors.inc b/includes/errors.inc
index 4b1f028018b2b520d62b1878c0aa9246f469d802..7ab84a708d21e040fde905fdea622168fd371fa4 100644
--- a/includes/errors.inc
+++ b/includes/errors.inc
@@ -216,7 +216,7 @@ function _drupal_log_error($error, $fatal = FALSE) {
     if ($fatal) {
       // When called from CLI, simply output a plain text message.
       print html_entity_decode(strip_tags(t('%type: !message in %function (line %line of %file).', $error))). "\n";
-      exit;
+      exit(1);
     }
   }