diff --git a/tools/target_dec_fuzzer.c b/tools/target_dec_fuzzer.c
index e3ae3fd0ab..8ba25b4e8a 100644
--- a/tools/target_dec_fuzzer.c
+++ b/tools/target_dec_fuzzer.c
@@ -203,6 +203,7 @@ int LLVMFuzzerTestOneInput(const uint8_t *data, size_t size) {
     if (res < 0) {
         av_free(ctx);
         av_free(parser_avctx);
+        av_parser_close(parser);
         return 0; // Failure of avcodec_open2() does not imply that a issue was found
     }
     parser_avctx->codec_id = ctx->codec_id;