diff --git a/changelog/5782.bugfix.rst b/changelog/5782.bugfix.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..d1f144b21
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog/5782.bugfix.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Fix decoding error when printing an error response from ``--pastebin``.
\ No newline at end of file
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):