diff --git a/compat/mingw.h b/compat/mingw.h
index 4f7ba4c13f..c1859c5480 100644
--- a/compat/mingw.h
+++ b/compat/mingw.h
@@ -92,6 +92,8 @@ static inline int fcntl(int fd, int cmd, long arg)
 	errno = EINVAL;
 	return -1;
 }
+/* bash cannot reliably detect negative return codes as failure */
+#define exit(code) exit((code) & 0xff)
 
 /*
  * simple adaptors
diff --git a/git.c b/git.c
index f4d53f40de..65ed733fda 100644
--- a/git.c
+++ b/git.c
@@ -245,7 +245,7 @@ static int run_builtin(struct cmd_struct *p, int argc, const char **argv)
 
 	status = p->fn(argc, argv, prefix);
 	if (status)
-		return status & 0xff;
+		return status;
 
 	/* Somebody closed stdout? */
 	if (fstat(fileno(stdout), &st))