diff --git a/thunder/executors/sdpaex.py b/thunder/executors/sdpaex.py
index e69afcb05c..3fc6eab9e9 100644
--- a/thunder/executors/sdpaex.py
+++ b/thunder/executors/sdpaex.py
@@ -321,10 +321,12 @@ def _scaled_dot_product_efficient_attention_backward_impl(
         is_causal,
         scale=scale,
     )
-    if not utils.same_shape(grad_attn_mask.shape, attn_mask.shape):
+
+    if attn_mask is not None and not utils.same_shape(grad_attn_mask.shape, attn_mask.shape):
         # Needs to sum over the number of heads dimension in grad_attn_mask
         # if the number of heads in attention mask is expanded in _attention_mask_memory_efficient_helper.
         grad_attn_mask = torch.sum(grad_attn_mask, dim=1, keepdim=True)
+
     return grad_q, grad_k, grad_v, grad_attn_mask
 
 
diff --git a/thunder/tests/test_sdpaex_executor.py b/thunder/tests/test_sdpaex_executor.py
index 6052835ba6..b0a4a7f6f8 100644
--- a/thunder/tests/test_sdpaex_executor.py
+++ b/thunder/tests/test_sdpaex_executor.py
@@ -35,16 +35,17 @@ def device_version_support(
     "dtype", [torch.float32, torch.bfloat16, torch.float16], ids=("float32", "bfloat16", "float16")
 )
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("device,", ["cuda"])
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("requires_grad", [True, False])
 @requiresCUDA
-def test_sdpa(device: str, dtype: torch.dtype):
+def test_sdpa(device: str, dtype: torch.dtype, requires_grad: bool):
     batch = 10
     seq_len = 128
     num_heads = 4
     dim_per_head = 32
 
-    query = torch.randn([batch, seq_len, num_heads, dim_per_head], device="cuda")
-    key = torch.randn([batch, seq_len, num_heads, dim_per_head], device="cuda")
-    value = torch.randn([batch, seq_len, num_heads, dim_per_head], device="cuda")
+    query = torch.randn([batch, seq_len, num_heads, dim_per_head], device="cuda", requires_grad=requires_grad)
+    key = torch.randn([batch, seq_len, num_heads, dim_per_head], device="cuda", requires_grad=requires_grad)
+    value = torch.randn([batch, seq_len, num_heads, dim_per_head], device="cuda", requires_grad=requires_grad)
 
     def fn(query, key, value):
         return torch.nn.functional.scaled_dot_product_attention(query, key, value)
@@ -63,6 +64,12 @@ def fn(query, key, value):
         bsym.sym.name == "sdpaex_grad_forward_scaled_dot_product_efficient_attention" for bsym in extrace.bound_symbols
     )
 
+    if requires_grad:
+        grad_output = torch.rand_like(thunder_result)
+        actual_grads = torch.autograd.grad(thunder_result, (query, key, value), grad_outputs=grad_output)
+        expected_grads = torch.autograd.grad(torch_result, (query, key, value), grad_outputs=grad_output)
+        torch.testing.assert_close(actual_grads, expected_grads)
+
 
 @requiresCUDA
 def test_sdpa_autocast_flash():