diff --git a/src/transformers/tokenization_utils_base.py b/src/transformers/tokenization_utils_base.py
index 7647576914c1..db8b35a946de 100644
--- a/src/transformers/tokenization_utils_base.py
+++ b/src/transformers/tokenization_utils_base.py
@@ -2468,7 +2468,8 @@ def is_base_mistral(model_id: str) -> bool:
                     transformers_version = _config.get("transformers_version")
 
                     if transformers_version and version.parse(transformers_version) <= version.parse("4.57.2"):
-                        if _is_local and _config.model_type not in [
+                        model_type = _config.get("model_type", None)
+                        if _is_local and model_type not in [
                             "mistral",
                             "mistral3",
                             "voxstral",