diff --git a/hadoop-yarn-project/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-yarn-project/CHANGES.txt
index 7a78b965c10..133083c1508 100644
--- a/hadoop-yarn-project/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-yarn-project/CHANGES.txt
@@ -31,6 +31,8 @@ Release 2.8.0 - UNRELEASED
     YARN-2868. FairScheduler: Metric for latency to allocate first container 
     for an application. (Ray Chiang via kasha)
 
+    YARN-3397. yarn rmadmin should skip -failover. (J.Andreina via kasha)
+
   OPTIMIZATIONS
 
     YARN-3339. TestDockerContainerExecutor should pull a single image and not
diff --git a/hadoop-yarn-project/hadoop-yarn/hadoop-yarn-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/yarn/client/cli/RMAdminCLI.java b/hadoop-yarn-project/hadoop-yarn/hadoop-yarn-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/yarn/client/cli/RMAdminCLI.java
index 4642add12e3..420eeb0ff12 100644
--- a/hadoop-yarn-project/hadoop-yarn/hadoop-yarn-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/yarn/client/cli/RMAdminCLI.java
+++ b/hadoop-yarn-project/hadoop-yarn/hadoop-yarn-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/yarn/client/cli/RMAdminCLI.java
@@ -134,7 +134,8 @@ public class RMAdminCLI extends HAAdmin {
 
   private static void appendHAUsage(final StringBuilder usageBuilder) {
     for (Map.Entry<String,UsageInfo> cmdEntry : USAGE.entrySet()) {
-      if (cmdEntry.getKey().equals("-help")) {
+      if (cmdEntry.getKey().equals("-help")
+          || cmdEntry.getKey().equals("-failover")) {
         continue;
       }
       UsageInfo usageInfo = cmdEntry.getValue();
@@ -225,7 +226,7 @@ public class RMAdminCLI extends HAAdmin {
     }
     if (isHAEnabled) {
       for (String cmdKey : USAGE.keySet()) {
-        if (!cmdKey.equals("-help")) {
+        if (!cmdKey.equals("-help") && !cmdKey.equals("-failover")) {
           buildHelpMsg(cmdKey, helpBuilder);
           helpBuilder.append("\n");
         }
diff --git a/hadoop-yarn-project/hadoop-yarn/hadoop-yarn-client/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/yarn/client/cli/TestRMAdminCLI.java b/hadoop-yarn-project/hadoop-yarn/hadoop-yarn-client/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/yarn/client/cli/TestRMAdminCLI.java
index c22494c9eb6..606711008cb 100644
--- a/hadoop-yarn-project/hadoop-yarn/hadoop-yarn-client/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/yarn/client/cli/TestRMAdminCLI.java
+++ b/hadoop-yarn-project/hadoop-yarn/hadoop-yarn-client/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/yarn/client/cli/TestRMAdminCLI.java
@@ -364,16 +364,15 @@ public class TestRMAdminCLI {
       assertEquals(0, rmAdminCLIWithHAEnabled.run(args));
       oldOutPrintStream.println(dataOut);
       String expectedHelpMsg = 
-          "yarn rmadmin [-refreshQueues] [-refreshNodes] [-refreshSuper" +
-              "UserGroupsConfiguration] [-refreshUserToGroupsMappings] " +
-              "[-refreshAdminAcls] [-refreshServiceAcl] [-getGroup" +
-              " [username]] [[-addToClusterNodeLabels [label1,label2,label3]]" +
-              " [-removeFromClusterNodeLabels [label1,label2,label3]] [-replaceLabelsOnNode " +
-              "[node1[:port]=label1,label2 node2[:port]=label1] [-directlyAccessNodeLabelStore]] " +
-              "[-transitionToActive [--forceactive] <serviceId>] " + 
-              "[-transitionToStandby <serviceId>] [-failover" +
-              " [--forcefence] [--forceactive] <serviceId> <serviceId>] " +
-              "[-getServiceState <serviceId>] [-checkHealth <serviceId>] [-help [cmd]]";
+          "yarn rmadmin [-refreshQueues] [-refreshNodes] [-refreshSuper"
+              + "UserGroupsConfiguration] [-refreshUserToGroupsMappings] "
+              + "[-refreshAdminAcls] [-refreshServiceAcl] [-getGroup"
+              + " [username]] [[-addToClusterNodeLabels [label1,label2,label3]]"
+              + " [-removeFromClusterNodeLabels [label1,label2,label3]] [-replaceLabelsOnNode "
+              + "[node1[:port]=label1,label2 node2[:port]=label1] [-directlyAccessNodeLabelStore]] "
+              + "[-transitionToActive [--forceactive] <serviceId>] "
+              + "[-transitionToStandby <serviceId>] "
+              + "[-getServiceState <serviceId>] [-checkHealth <serviceId>] [-help [cmd]]";
       String actualHelpMsg = dataOut.toString();
       assertTrue(String.format("Help messages: %n " + actualHelpMsg + " %n doesn't include expected " +
           "messages: %n" + expectedHelpMsg), actualHelpMsg.contains(expectedHelpMsg