diff --git a/modules/sd_models.py b/modules/sd_models.py
index 2cdcd84f3..4c06051e5 100644
--- a/modules/sd_models.py
+++ b/modules/sd_models.py
@@ -153,7 +153,14 @@ def load_model_weights(model, checkpoint_info):
 
     vae_file = os.path.splitext(checkpoint_file)[0] + ".vae.pt"
     if os.path.exists(vae_file):
-        print(f"Loading VAE weights from: {vae_file}")
+        print(f"Found VAE Weights: {vae_file}")
+    elif shared.cmd_opts.vae_path != None:
+        vae_file = shared.cmd_opts.vae_path
+        print(f'No VAE found for inside the model folder. Using CLI specified : {vae_file}')
+    else:
+        print("No VAE found for inside the model folder. Passing.")
+
+    if os.path.exists(vae_file):
         vae_ckpt = torch.load(vae_file, map_location="cpu")
         vae_dict = {k: v for k, v in vae_ckpt["state_dict"].items() if k[0:4] != "loss"}
 
diff --git a/modules/shared.py b/modules/shared.py
index b1c65ecf6..da389f9c0 100644
--- a/modules/shared.py
+++ b/modules/shared.py
@@ -66,6 +66,7 @@ parser.add_argument("--autolaunch", action='store_true', help="open the webui UR
 parser.add_argument("--use-textbox-seed", action='store_true', help="use textbox for seeds in UI (no up/down, but possible to input long seeds)", default=False)
 parser.add_argument("--disable-console-progressbars", action='store_true', help="do not output progressbars to console", default=False)
 parser.add_argument("--enable-console-prompts", action='store_true', help="print prompts to console when generating with txt2img and img2img", default=False)
+parser.add_argument('--vae-path', type=str, help='Path to Variational Autoencoders model', default=None)
 parser.add_argument("--disable-safe-unpickle", action='store_true', help="disable checking pytorch models for malicious code", default=False)