diff --git a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/master/balancer/HeterogeneousRegionCountCostFunction.java b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/master/balancer/HeterogeneousRegionCountCostFunction.java
index a9bb6851ad26..4b58b5d0d126 100644
--- a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/master/balancer/HeterogeneousRegionCountCostFunction.java
+++ b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/master/balancer/HeterogeneousRegionCountCostFunction.java
@@ -221,11 +221,14 @@ private List<String> readFileFromLocalFS(final String filename) throws IOExcepti
 
   private List<String> readLines(BufferedReader reader) throws IOException {
     final List<String> records = new ArrayList<>();
-    String line;
-    while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
-      records.add(line);
+    try {
+      String line;
+      while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
+        records.add(line);
+      }
+    } finally {
+      reader.close();
     }
-    reader.close();
     return records;
   }