diff --git a/Lib/test/test_urllib.py b/Lib/test/test_urllib.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_urllib.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_urllib.py
@@ -268,6 +268,11 @@
         finally:
             self.unfakehttp()
 
+    def test_missing_local_file(self):
+        # see #10836
+        with self.assertRaises(urllib.error.URLError):
+            urlopen('file://localhost/i/am/a/missing/local.file')
+
     def test_userpass_inurl(self):
         self.fakehttp(b"HTTP/1.0 200 OK\r\n\r\nHello!")
         try:
diff --git a/Lib/urllib/request.py b/Lib/urllib/request.py
--- a/Lib/urllib/request.py
+++ b/Lib/urllib/request.py
@@ -1768,7 +1768,7 @@
         try:
             stats = os.stat(localname)
         except OSError as e:
-            raise URLError(e.errno, e.strerror, e.filename)
+            raise URLError('local file error')
         size = stats.st_size
         modified = email.utils.formatdate(stats.st_mtime, usegmt=True)
         mtype = mimetypes.guess_type(url)[0]