diff --git a/src/axolotl/utils/config/__init__.py b/src/axolotl/utils/config/__init__.py
index 7a2bbd6f9a..bc529b58e4 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/utils/config/__init__.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/utils/config/__init__.py
@@ -86,9 +86,12 @@ def resolve_dtype(cfg):
         if cfg.bf16:
             cfg.fp16 = False
 
-    if cfg.bf16 or cfg.bfloat16:
+    # For mixed precision, we want the base model loaded in fp32
+    if cfg.fp16 or cfg.bf16:
+        cfg.torch_dtype = torch.float32
+    elif cfg.bfloat16:
         cfg.torch_dtype = torch.bfloat16
-    elif cfg.load_in_8bit or cfg.fp16 or cfg.float16:
+    elif cfg.load_in_8bit or cfg.float16:
         cfg.torch_dtype = torch.float16
     else:
         cfg.torch_dtype = torch.float32