diff --git a/mercurial/dispatch.py b/mercurial/dispatch.py
--- a/mercurial/dispatch.py
+++ b/mercurial/dispatch.py
@@ -667,7 +667,7 @@ def _getlocal(ui, rpath, wd=None):
     """
     if wd is None:
         try:
-            wd = os.getcwd()
+            wd = pycompat.getcwd()
         except OSError as e:
             raise error.Abort(_("error getting current working directory: %s") %
                               e.strerror)
diff --git a/mercurial/pycompat.py b/mercurial/pycompat.py
--- a/mercurial/pycompat.py
+++ b/mercurial/pycompat.py
@@ -43,6 +43,9 @@ if ispy3:
     osname = os.name.encode('ascii')
     ospathsep = os.pathsep.encode('ascii')
     ossep = os.sep.encode('ascii')
+    # os.getcwd() on Python 3 returns string, but it has os.getcwdb() which
+    # returns bytes.
+    getcwd = os.getcwdb
 
     # TODO: .buffer might not exist if std streams were replaced; we'll need
     # a silly wrapper to make a bytes stream backed by a unicode one.
@@ -110,6 +113,7 @@ else:
     stdout = sys.stdout
     stderr = sys.stderr
     sysargv = sys.argv
+    getcwd = os.getcwd
 
 stringio = io.StringIO
 empty = _queue.Empty