diff --git a/lib/ansible/plugins/inventory/virtualbox.py b/lib/ansible/plugins/inventory/virtualbox.py
index 08bbf96337e..07bc61e74ae 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/plugins/inventory/virtualbox.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/plugins/inventory/virtualbox.py
@@ -250,7 +250,7 @@ class InventoryModule(BaseInventoryPlugin, Constructable, Cacheable):
             try:
                 p = Popen(cmd, stdout=PIPE)
             except Exception as e:
-                AnsibleParserError(to_native(e))
+                raise AnsibleParserError(to_native(e))
 
             source_data = p.stdout.read().splitlines()