diff --git a/__tests__/fixtures/options.ts b/__tests__/fixtures/options.ts
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..921ec6e0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/__tests__/fixtures/options.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+import * as ts from "typescript";
+
+import { setTypescriptModule } from "../../src/tsproxy";
+import { IOptions } from "../../src/ioptions";
+
+setTypescriptModule(ts);
+
+export function makeOptions(cacheDir: string, cwd: string): IOptions {
+	return {
+		include: ["*.ts+(|x)", "**/*.ts+(|x)"],
+		exclude: ["*.d.ts", "**/*.d.ts"],
+		check: false,
+		verbosity: 5,
+		clean: false,
+		cacheRoot: cacheDir,
+		cwd,
+		abortOnError: false,
+		rollupCommonJSResolveHack: false,
+		typescript: ts,
+		objectHashIgnoreUnknownHack: false,
+		tsconfigOverride: null,
+		useTsconfigDeclarationDir: false,
+		tsconfigDefaults: null,
+		sourceMapCallback: (id: string, map: string): void => {
+			console.log(id + map);
+		},
+		transformers: [(ls: ts.LanguageService) => {
+			console.log(ls);
+			return {};
+		}],
+	};
+}
diff --git a/__tests__/get-options-overrides.spec.ts b/__tests__/get-options-overrides.spec.ts
index ec2c6725..cdc141e5 100644
--- a/__tests__/get-options-overrides.spec.ts
+++ b/__tests__/get-options-overrides.spec.ts
@@ -4,13 +4,10 @@ import * as ts from "typescript";
 import { normalizePath as normalize } from "@rollup/pluginutils";
 import { remove } from "fs-extra";
 
+import { makeOptions } from "./fixtures/options";
 import { makeStubbedContext } from "./fixtures/context";
-import { setTypescriptModule } from "../src/tsproxy";
-import { IOptions } from "../src/ioptions";
 import { getOptionsOverrides, createFilter } from "../src/get-options-overrides";
 
-setTypescriptModule(ts);
-
 const local = (x: string) => normalize(path.resolve(__dirname, x));
 const cacheDir = local("__temp/get-options-overrides");
 
@@ -19,29 +16,7 @@ const filtPath = (relPath: string) => normalize(`${process.cwd()}/${relPath}`);
 
 afterAll(() => remove(cacheDir));
 
-const defaultConfig: IOptions = {
-	include: ["*.ts+(|x)", "**/*.ts+(|x)"],
-	exclude: ["*.d.ts", "**/*.d.ts"],
-	check: false,
-	verbosity: 5,
-	clean: false,
-	cacheRoot: cacheDir,
-	cwd: local(""),
-	abortOnError: false,
-	rollupCommonJSResolveHack: false,
-	typescript: ts,
-	objectHashIgnoreUnknownHack: false,
-	tsconfigOverride: null,
-	useTsconfigDeclarationDir: false,
-	tsconfigDefaults: null,
-	sourceMapCallback: (id: string, map: string): void => {
-		console.log(id + map);
-	},
-	transformers: [(ls: ts.LanguageService) => {
-		console.log(ls);
-		return {};
-	}],
-};
+const defaultConfig = makeOptions(cacheDir, local(""));
 
 const forcedOptions: ts.CompilerOptions = {
 	allowNonTsExtensions: true,
diff --git a/__tests__/integration/errors.spec.ts b/__tests__/integration/errors.spec.ts
index 14b8bd9c..e6cb2aa8 100644
--- a/__tests__/integration/errors.spec.ts
+++ b/__tests__/integration/errors.spec.ts
@@ -30,13 +30,6 @@ async function genBundle(relInput: string, extraOpts?: RPT2Options, onwarn?: Moc
   });
 }
 
-test("integration - tsconfig errors", async () => {
-  // TODO: move to parse-tsconfig unit tests?
-  await expect(genBundle("semantic.ts", {
-    tsconfig: "non-existent-tsconfig",
-  })).rejects.toThrow("rpt2: failed to open 'non-existent-tsconfig'");
-});
-
 test("integration - semantic error", async () => {
   await expect(genBundle("semantic.ts")).rejects.toThrow("Type 'string' is not assignable to type 'number'.");
 });
diff --git a/__tests__/parse-tsconfig.spec.ts b/__tests__/parse-tsconfig.spec.ts
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..1f2f7754
--- /dev/null
+++ b/__tests__/parse-tsconfig.spec.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+import { test, expect } from "@jest/globals";
+import * as path from "path";
+import { normalizePath as normalize } from "@rollup/pluginutils";
+
+import { makeOptions } from "./fixtures/options";
+import { makeStubbedContext } from "./fixtures/context";
+import { parseTsConfig } from "../src/parse-tsconfig";
+
+const local = (x: string) => normalize(path.resolve(__dirname, x));
+
+const defaultOpts = makeOptions("", "");
+const stubbedContext = makeStubbedContext({});
+
+test("parseTsConfig", () => {
+	expect(() => parseTsConfig(stubbedContext, defaultOpts)).not.toThrow();
+});
+
+test("parseTsConfig - tsconfig errors", () => {
+	const data = { error: "" };
+
+	// should not throw when the tsconfig is buggy, but should still print an error (below)
+	expect(() => parseTsConfig(makeStubbedContext(data), {
+		...defaultOpts,
+		tsconfigOverride: {
+			include: "should-be-an-array",
+		},
+	})).not.toThrow();
+	expect(data.error).toMatch("Compiler option 'include' requires a value of type Array");
+});
+
+test("parseTsConfig - failed to open", () => {
+	expect(() => parseTsConfig(stubbedContext, {
+		...defaultOpts,
+		tsconfig: "non-existent-tsconfig",
+	})).toThrow("rpt2: failed to open 'non-existent-tsconfig'");
+});
+
+test("parseTsConfig - failed to parse", () => {
+	const notTsConfigPath = local("fixtures/options.ts"); // a TS file should fail to parse
+
+	expect(() => parseTsConfig(stubbedContext, {
+		...defaultOpts,
+		tsconfig: notTsConfigPath,
+	})).toThrow(`rpt2: failed to parse '${notTsConfigPath}'`);
+});
diff --git a/src/parse-tsconfig.ts b/src/parse-tsconfig.ts
index b24a0bb9..45380ce9 100644
--- a/src/parse-tsconfig.ts
+++ b/src/parse-tsconfig.ts
@@ -23,10 +23,7 @@ export function parseTsConfig(context: IContext, pluginOptions: IOptions)
 	let pretty = true;
 	if (fileName)
 	{
-		const text = tsModule.sys.readFile(fileName);
-		if (text === undefined)
-			throw new Error(`rpt2: failed to read '${fileName}'`);
-
+		const text = tsModule.sys.readFile(fileName)!; // readFile only returns undefined when the file doesn't exist, which we already checked above
 		const result = tsModule.parseConfigFileTextToJson(fileName, text);
 		pretty = result.config?.pretty ?? pretty;