diff --git a/src/uucore/src/lib/features/perms.rs b/src/uucore/src/lib/features/perms.rs
index 2823b35b1a2..d1e351ee3ef 100644
--- a/src/uucore/src/lib/features/perms.rs
+++ b/src/uucore/src/lib/features/perms.rs
@@ -619,7 +619,6 @@ impl ChownExecutor {
                 );
                 continue;
             }
-
             ret = match wrap_chown(
                 path,
                 &meta,
@@ -632,7 +631,8 @@ impl ChownExecutor {
                     if !n.is_empty() {
                         show_error!("{n}");
                     }
-                    0
+                    // retain previous errors
+                    ret.max(0)
                 }
                 Err(e) => {
                     if self.verbosity.level != VerbosityLevel::Silent {
diff --git a/tests/by-util/test_chgrp.rs b/tests/by-util/test_chgrp.rs
index cc0727dd3eb..aa2c9192c1c 100644
--- a/tests/by-util/test_chgrp.rs
+++ b/tests/by-util/test_chgrp.rs
@@ -640,3 +640,26 @@ fn test_chgrp_recursive_on_file() {
         current_gid
     );
 }
+
+#[test]
+fn test_chgrp_exit_code_not_being_overwritten_by_last_file() {
+    use std::os::unix::prelude::PermissionsExt;
+
+    let current_gid = getegid();
+    let (at, mut ucmd) = at_and_ucmd!();
+    at.mkdir("dir");
+    at.mkdir("dir/a");
+    at.mkdir("dir/b");
+    at.touch("dir/b/file");
+    at.touch("dir/a/file");
+    std::fs::set_permissions(at.plus("dir/a"), PermissionsExt::from_mode(0o0000)).unwrap();
+
+    // chgrp walks the dir alphabetically. Dir a does not have permissions so it fails, dir b does have
+    // permissions so it succeeds. We check that the overall command does fail although the
+    // last step succeeded.
+
+    ucmd.arg("-R")
+        .arg(current_gid.to_string())
+        .arg("dir")
+        .fails();
+}