diff --git a/.changeset/four-zebras-deliver.md b/.changeset/four-zebras-deliver.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..bd77438fa373
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.changeset/four-zebras-deliver.md
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+"wrangler": patch
+---
+
+Make debug log for `.env` not found less scary
diff --git a/packages/wrangler/src/__tests__/dev.test.ts b/packages/wrangler/src/__tests__/dev.test.ts
index 561cbecd4034..7f90d8824e7a 100644
--- a/packages/wrangler/src/__tests__/dev.test.ts
+++ b/packages/wrangler/src/__tests__/dev.test.ts
@@ -954,6 +954,14 @@ describe.sequential("wrangler dev", () => {
 				const output = fs.readFileSync("var.txt", "utf8");
 				expect(output).toMatch("custom");
 			});
+			it("should show reasonable debug output if `.env` does not exist", async () => {
+				fs.rmSync(".env");
+				writeWranglerConfig({
+					main: "index.js",
+				});
+				await runWranglerUntilConfig("dev --log-level debug");
+				expect(std.debug).toContain(".env file not found at");
+			});
 		});
 	});
 
diff --git a/packages/wrangler/src/config/index.ts b/packages/wrangler/src/config/index.ts
index 8bea2aa5a00b..b6f30958c374 100644
--- a/packages/wrangler/src/config/index.ts
+++ b/packages/wrangler/src/config/index.ts
@@ -686,7 +686,13 @@ function tryLoadDotEnv(path: string): DotEnv | undefined {
 		const parsed = dotenv.parse(fs.readFileSync(path));
 		return { path, parsed };
 	} catch (e) {
-		logger.debug(`Failed to load .env file "${path}":`, e);
+		if ((e as { code: string }).code === "ENOENT") {
+			logger.debug(
+				`.env file not found at "${path}". Continuing... For more details, refer to https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/wrangler/system-environment-variables/`
+			);
+		} else {
+			logger.debug(`Failed to load .env file "${path}":`, e);
+		}
 	}
 }