diff --git a/changelog/5782.bugfix.rst b/changelog/5782.bugfix.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..e961d8fb5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog/5782.bugfix.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Fix decoding error when printing an error response from ``--pastebin``.
diff --git a/src/_pytest/pastebin.py b/src/_pytest/pastebin.py
index ce0e73acc..91aa5f1fd 100644
--- a/src/_pytest/pastebin.py
+++ b/src/_pytest/pastebin.py
@@ -72,7 +72,7 @@ def create_new_paste(contents):
     if m:
         return "{}/show/{}".format(url, m.group(1))
     else:
-        return "bad response: " + response
+        return "bad response: " + response.decode("utf-8")
 
 
 def pytest_terminal_summary(terminalreporter):
diff --git a/testing/test_pastebin.py b/testing/test_pastebin.py
index 9afa1e23f..4e8bac56c 100644
--- a/testing/test_pastebin.py
+++ b/testing/test_pastebin.py
@@ -116,3 +116,15 @@ class TestPaste:
         assert "lexer=%s" % lexer in data.decode()
         assert "code=full-paste-contents" in data.decode()
         assert "expiry=1week" in data.decode()
+
+    def test_create_new_paste_failure(self, pastebin, monkeypatch):
+        import io
+        import urllib.request
+
+        def response(url, data):
+            stream = io.BytesIO(b"something bad occurred")
+            return stream
+
+        monkeypatch.setattr(urllib.request, "urlopen", response)
+        result = pastebin.create_new_paste(b"full-paste-contents")
+        assert result == "bad response: something bad occurred"