diff --git a/mlx/fast.cpp b/mlx/fast.cpp
index 2c93d6861..c7dfb36e6 100644
--- a/mlx/fast.cpp
+++ b/mlx/fast.cpp
@@ -586,9 +586,9 @@ array scaled_dot_product_attention(
     throw std::invalid_argument(msg.str());
   }
 
-  if (mask && (*mask).dtype() != final_type) {
+  if (mask && promote_types((*mask).dtype(), final_type) != final_type) {
     std::ostringstream msg;
-    msg << "[scaled_dot_product_attention] Mask should match output type. "
+    msg << "[scaled_dot_product_attention] Mask type must promote to output type. "
         << final_type << ".";
     throw std::invalid_argument(msg.str());
   }