diff --git a/AUTHORS b/AUTHORS
index 9629e00bcfb..0cd3d617fd6 100644
--- a/AUTHORS
+++ b/AUTHORS
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ Alexander Johnson
 Alexander King
 Alexei Kozlenok
 Alice Purcell
+Alison Day
 Allan Feldman
 Aly Sivji
 Amir Elkess
diff --git a/changelog/13083.bugfix.rst b/changelog/13083.bugfix.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..329cc70023e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog/13083.bugfix.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Fixes an issue where the :func:`_pytest.pathlib.scandir` function crashes if the directory to scan does not exist by catching the ``FileNotFoundError`` and returning an empty array.
diff --git a/src/_pytest/pathlib.py b/src/_pytest/pathlib.py
index 25dc69b6349..0acb8291ec0 100644
--- a/src/_pytest/pathlib.py
+++ b/src/_pytest/pathlib.py
@@ -957,17 +957,21 @@ def scandir(
     The default is to sort by name.
     """
     entries = []
-    with os.scandir(path) as s:
-        # Skip entries with symlink loops and other brokenness, so the caller
-        # doesn't have to deal with it.
-        for entry in s:
-            try:
-                entry.is_file()
-            except OSError as err:
-                if _ignore_error(err):
-                    continue
-                raise
-            entries.append(entry)
+    try:
+        with os.scandir(path) as s:
+            scanned = list(s)
+    except FileNotFoundError:
+        return []
+    # Skip entries with symlink loops and other brokenness, so the caller
+    # doesn't have to deal with it.
+    for entry in scanned:
+        try:
+            entry.is_file()
+        except OSError as err:
+            if _ignore_error(err):
+                continue
+            raise
+        entries.append(entry)
     entries.sort(key=sort_key)  # type: ignore[arg-type]
     return entries