diff --git a/src/uu/tail/src/tail.rs b/src/uu/tail/src/tail.rs
index b6da02264eb..f5fe4215dd5 100644
--- a/src/uu/tail/src/tail.rs
+++ b/src/uu/tail/src/tail.rs
@@ -469,7 +469,11 @@ fn bounded_tail(file: &mut File, settings: &Settings) -> UResult<()> {
             file.seek(SeekFrom::End(0)).unwrap();
         }
         FilterMode::Bytes(Signum::Negative(count)) => {
-            if file.seek(SeekFrom::End(-(*count as i64))).is_err() {
+            // A count above `i64::MAX` has no negative counterpart to seek by,
+            // and reaches further back than any file can be long, so treat it
+            // like any other offset landing before the start of the file.
+            let offset = i64::try_from(*count).ok();
+            if offset.is_none_or(|offset| file.seek(SeekFrom::End(-offset)).is_err()) {
                 file.seek(SeekFrom::Start(0)).unwrap();
             }
             limit = Some(*count);
diff --git a/tests/by-util/test_tail.rs b/tests/by-util/test_tail.rs
index cec3e2c1d89..6bfeccd8302 100644
--- a/tests/by-util/test_tail.rs
+++ b/tests/by-util/test_tail.rs
@@ -1377,6 +1377,20 @@ fn test_positive_bytes_file_offset_past_seek_limit() {
         .no_stdout();
 }
 
+// `tail -c -N` on a seekable file larger than the block size seeks back `N`
+// bytes from the end. An `N` that does not fit in an `i64` must not abort the
+// process; it should print the whole file, like any other too-large count.
+#[test]
+fn test_negative_bytes_file_count_past_seek_limit() {
+    let (at, mut ucmd) = at_and_ucmd!();
+    // Larger than tail's `sane_blksize` (~4 KiB) so the seek path is taken.
+    let data = "a".repeat(8192);
+    at.write("big", &data);
+    ucmd.args(&["-c", "-9223372036854775808", "big"])
+        .succeeds()
+        .stdout_is(&data);
+}
+
 #[test]
 fn test_num_with_undocumented_sign_bytes() {
     // tail: '-' is not documented (8.32 man pages)