diff --git a/virtcontainers/qemu.go b/virtcontainers/qemu.go
index 8560df9..45441c7 100644
--- a/virtcontainers/qemu.go
+++ b/virtcontainers/qemu.go
@@ -96,6 +96,8 @@ const (
        qmpCapErrMsg  = "Failed to negoatiate QMP capabilities"
        qmpExecCatCmd = "exec:cat"

+       qemuExitWaitSeconds = 5
+
        scsiControllerID  = "scsi0"
        rngID             = "rng0"
        vsockKernelOption = "agent.use_vsock"
@@ -749,7 +751,7 @@ func (q *qemu) stopSandbox() error {
                return err
        }

-       return nil
+       return q.waitQemuDown(qemuExitWaitSeconds)
 }

 func (q *qemu) cleanupVM() error {
@@ -850,6 +852,37 @@ func (q *qemu) qmpShutdown() {
        }
 }

+// waitQemuDown will watch for the QMP monitor socket to disappear indicating
+//     that QEMU process has actually exited. This can take 10-100ms sometimes
+func (q *qemu) waitQemuDown(timeout int) error {
+       q.Logger().Debug("Waiting for qmp socket to disappear: %s", q.qmpMonitorCh.path)
+       q.qmpShutdown()
+       timeStart := time.Now()
+       for {
+               _, err := os.Stat(q.qmpMonitorCh.path)
+
+               if err != nil {
+                       if os.IsNotExist(err) { // happy path
+                               q.Logger().Debug("No longer able to access %s, QEMU appears to have exited", q.qmpMonitorCh.path)
+                               break
+                       } else {
+                               q.Logger().WithError(err).Error("Unexpected error checking for QMP socket on %s", q.qmpMonitorCh.path)
+                               return fmt.Errorf("Unexpected error checking for QMP socket on %s: %v", q.qmpMonitorCh.path, err)
+                       }
+
+               }
+
+               if int(time.Now().Sub(timeStart).Seconds()) > timeout {
+                       return fmt.Errorf("QEMU still active(timeout %ds)", timeout)
+               }
+
+               time.Sleep(time.Duration(50) * time.Millisecond)
+       }
+
+       return nil
+
+}
+
 func (q *qemu) addDeviceToBridge(ID string) (string, types.PCIBridge, error) {
        var err error
        var addr uint32