diff --git a/CHANGELOG.next.asciidoc b/CHANGELOG.next.asciidoc
index 4b8f0c108ce4..2cff6a140109 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.next.asciidoc
+++ b/CHANGELOG.next.asciidoc
@@ -92,6 +92,7 @@ https://github.com/elastic/beats/compare/v7.0.0-alpha2...master[Check the HEAD d
 - Add missing Kubernetes metadata fields to Filebeat CoreDNS module, and fix a documentation error. {pull}11591[11591]
 - Reduce memory usage if long lines are truncated to fit `max_bytes` limit. The line buffer is copied into a smaller buffer now. This allows the runtime to release unused memory earlier. {pull}11524[11524]
 - Fix memory leak in Filebeat pipeline acker. {pull}12063[12063]
+- Fix goroutine leak caused on initialization failures of log input. {pull}12125[12125]
 
 *Heartbeat*
 
diff --git a/filebeat/input/log/input.go b/filebeat/input/log/input.go
index 3841fc23973f..ff7ff10090f9 100644
--- a/filebeat/input/log/input.go
+++ b/filebeat/input/log/input.go
@@ -76,6 +76,7 @@ func NewInput(
 	outlet channel.Connector,
 	context input.Context,
 ) (input.Input, error) {
+	cleanupNeeded := true
 
 	// Note: underlying output.
 	//  The input and harvester do have different requirements
@@ -87,11 +88,21 @@ func NewInput(
 	if err != nil {
 		return nil, err
 	}
+	defer func() {
+		if cleanupNeeded {
+			out.Close()
+		}
+	}()
 
 	// stateOut will only be unblocked if the beat is shut down.
 	// otherwise it can block on a full publisher pipeline, so state updates
 	// can be forwarded correctly to the registrar.
 	stateOut := channel.CloseOnSignal(channel.SubOutlet(out), context.BeatDone)
+	defer func() {
+		if cleanupNeeded {
+			stateOut.Close()
+		}
+	}()
 
 	meta := context.Meta
 	if len(meta) == 0 {
@@ -137,6 +148,7 @@ func NewInput(
 
 	logp.Info("Configured paths: %v", p.config.Paths)
 
+	cleanupNeeded = false
 	return p, nil
 }