diff --git a/docs/changelog.md b/docs/changelog.md
index fdbb31d663c..25f50e01b4e 100644
--- a/docs/changelog.md
+++ b/docs/changelog.md
@@ -72,6 +72,7 @@ As features stabilize some brief notes about them will accumulate here.
 * multiplexer: spawning remote tabs didn't correctly record local tab mapping, resulting in phantom additional tabs showing in the client. [#1222](https://github.com/wez/wezterm/issues/1222)
 * `wezterm ls-fonts --text "✘"` didn't account for the system fallback list. [#849](https://github.com/wez/wezterm/issues/849)
 * macOS: The `Menlo` font is now implicitly included in the system fallback list, as it is the only font that contains U+2718 ✘
+* `wezterm cli spawn --cwd ..` and `wezterm cli split-pane --cwd ..` now resolve relative paths [#1243](https://github.com/wez/wezterm/issues/1243)
 
 #### Updated and Improved
 
diff --git a/wezterm/src/main.rs b/wezterm/src/main.rs
index 44f3af4b49d..7edd5f839d6 100644
--- a/wezterm/src/main.rs
+++ b/wezterm/src/main.rs
@@ -262,6 +262,18 @@ impl SetCwdCommand {
     }
 }
 
+fn canon_cwd(cwd: Option<OsString>) -> anyhow::Result<Option<String>> {
+    match cwd {
+        None => Ok(None),
+        Some(cwd) => Ok(Some(
+            std::fs::canonicalize(cwd)?
+                .to_str()
+                .ok_or_else(|| anyhow!("path is not representable as String"))?
+                .to_string(),
+        )),
+    }
+}
+
 fn terminate_with_error_message(err: &str) -> ! {
     log::error!("{}; terminating", err);
     std::process::exit(1);
@@ -448,7 +460,7 @@ async fn run_cli_async(config: config::ConfigHandle, cli: CliCommand) -> anyhow:
                         let builder = CommandBuilder::from_argv(prog);
                         Some(builder)
                     },
-                    command_dir: cwd.and_then(|c| c.to_str().map(|s| s.to_string())),
+                    command_dir: canon_cwd(cwd)?,
                 })
                 .await?;
 
@@ -516,7 +528,7 @@ async fn run_cli_async(config: config::ConfigHandle, cli: CliCommand) -> anyhow:
                         let builder = CommandBuilder::from_argv(prog);
                         Some(builder)
                     },
-                    command_dir: cwd.and_then(|c| c.to_str().map(|s| s.to_string())),
+                    command_dir: canon_cwd(cwd)?,
                     size: config::configuration().initial_size(),
                 })
                 .await?;