diff --git a/cmd/kubeadm/app/util/BUILD b/cmd/kubeadm/app/util/BUILD
index 1b2a4d7802f..aba1277a54a 100644
--- a/cmd/kubeadm/app/util/BUILD
+++ b/cmd/kubeadm/app/util/BUILD
@@ -16,7 +16,10 @@ go_library(
         "version.go",
     ],
     tags = ["automanaged"],
-    deps = ["//cmd/kubeadm/app/preflight:go_default_library"],
+    deps = [
+        "//cmd/kubeadm/app/preflight:go_default_library",
+        "//vendor/k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/util/errors:go_default_library",
+    ],
 )
 
 go_test(
diff --git a/cmd/kubeadm/app/util/error.go b/cmd/kubeadm/app/util/error.go
index 479c7cead48..2b8f638f79b 100644
--- a/cmd/kubeadm/app/util/error.go
+++ b/cmd/kubeadm/app/util/error.go
@@ -21,12 +21,14 @@ import (
 	"os"
 	"strings"
 
+	utilerrors "k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/util/errors"
 	"k8s.io/kubernetes/cmd/kubeadm/app/preflight"
 )
 
 const (
 	DefaultErrorExitCode = 1
 	PreFlightExitCode    = 2
+	ValidationExitCode   = 3
 )
 
 type debugError interface {
@@ -63,6 +65,9 @@ func checkErr(prefix string, err error, handleErr func(string, int)) {
 		return
 	case *preflight.Error:
 		handleErr(err.Error(), PreFlightExitCode)
+	case utilerrors.Aggregate:
+		handleErr(err.Error(), ValidationExitCode)
+
 	default:
 		handleErr(err.Error(), DefaultErrorExitCode)
 	}