diff --git a/.chloggen/filelog-close-empty-err.yaml b/.chloggen/filelog-close-empty-err.yaml
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000000..909fd0e6514c4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.chloggen/filelog-close-empty-err.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+# Use this changelog template to create an entry for release notes.
+# If your change doesn't affect end users, such as a test fix or a tooling change,
+# you should instead start your pull request title with [chore] or use the "Skip Changelog" label.
+
+# One of 'breaking', 'deprecation', 'new_component', 'enhancement', 'bug_fix'
+change_type: bug_fix
+
+# The name of the component, or a single word describing the area of concern, (e.g. filelogreceiver)
+component: filelogreceiver
+
+# A brief description of the change.  Surround your text with quotes ("") if it needs to start with a backtick (`).
+note: Fix issue where empty files would not be skipped, resulting in extraneous errors.
+
+# Mandatory: One or more tracking issues related to the change. You can use the PR number here if no issue exists.
+issues: [22815]
+
+# (Optional) One or more lines of additional information to render under the primary note.
+# These lines will be padded with 2 spaces and then inserted directly into the document.
+# Use pipe (|) for multiline entries.
+subtext:
diff --git a/pkg/stanza/fileconsumer/file.go b/pkg/stanza/fileconsumer/file.go
index f7e1853c860bf..1e7ad414718e5 100644
--- a/pkg/stanza/fileconsumer/file.go
+++ b/pkg/stanza/fileconsumer/file.go
@@ -211,8 +211,8 @@ func (m *Manager) makeReader(path string) *Reader {
 		// Empty file, don't read it until we can compare its fingerprint
 		if err = file.Close(); err != nil {
 			m.Errorf("problem closing file %s", file.Name())
-			return nil
 		}
+		return nil
 	}
 
 	// Exclude any empty fingerprints or duplicate fingerprints to avoid doubling up on copy-truncate files