diff --git a/news/12964.trivial.rst b/news/12964.trivial.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..1467743ff13
--- /dev/null
+++ b/news/12964.trivial.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+A valid, but non-existent URL used in a test case was corrected to be a valid URL.
diff --git a/tests/functional/test_bad_url.py b/tests/functional/test_bad_url.py
index bc3a987e6f2..7f6117e763b 100644
--- a/tests/functional/test_bad_url.py
+++ b/tests/functional/test_bad_url.py
@@ -7,8 +7,8 @@
 def test_filenotfound_error_message(script: Any) -> None:
     # Test the error message returned when using a bad 'file:' URL.
     # make pip to fail and get an error message
-    # by running "pip install -r file:nonexistent_file"
-    proc = script.pip("install", "-r", "file:unexistent_file", expect_error=True)
+    # by running "pip install -r file:///nonexistent_file"
+    proc = script.pip("install", "-r", "file:///unexistent_file", expect_error=True)
     assert proc.returncode == 1
     expect = (
         "ERROR: 404 Client Error: FileNotFoundError for url: file:///unexistent_file"