diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/iosxr_netconf_config_commit_fix.yaml b/changelogs/fragments/iosxr_netconf_config_commit_fix.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..429f3c5c595
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/iosxr_netconf_config_commit_fix.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+bugfixes:
+- Confirmed commit fails with TypeError in IOS XR netconf plugin (https://github.com/ansible-collections/cisco.iosxr/issues/74)
diff --git a/lib/ansible/plugins/netconf/__init__.py b/lib/ansible/plugins/netconf/__init__.py
index b181f37696a..529cc260675 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/plugins/netconf/__init__.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/plugins/netconf/__init__.py
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ from functools import wraps
 
 from ansible.errors import AnsibleError
 from ansible.plugins import AnsiblePlugin
-from ansible.module_utils._text import to_native
+from ansible.module_utils._text import to_native, to_text
 from ansible.module_utils.basic import missing_required_lib
 
 try:
@@ -269,6 +269,7 @@ class NetconfBase(AnsiblePlugin):
                         and set a token on the ongoing confirmed commit
         :return: Returns xml string containing the RPC response received from remote host
         """
+        timeout = to_text(timeout, errors='surrogate_or_strict')
         resp = self.m.commit(confirmed=confirmed, timeout=timeout, persist=persist)
         return resp.data_xml if hasattr(resp, 'data_xml') else resp.xml