diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/40600-apt-mark-availability.yml b/changelogs/fragments/40600-apt-mark-availability.yml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..ddbca0e26a6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/40600-apt-mark-availability.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+bugfixes:
+- skip marking packages as manually installed when apt-mark is not available (https://github.com/ansible/ansible/pull/40600)
diff --git a/lib/ansible/modules/packaging/os/apt.py b/lib/ansible/modules/packaging/os/apt.py
index dbf8b09d077..cd0d99dc5c4 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/modules/packaging/os/apt.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/modules/packaging/os/apt.py
@@ -473,7 +473,13 @@ def mark_installed_manually(m, packages):
     if not packages:
         return
 
-    apt_mark_cmd_path = m.get_bin_path("apt-mark", required=True)
+    apt_mark_cmd_path = m.get_bin_path("apt-mark")
+
+    # https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/40531
+    if apt_mark_cmd_path is None:
+        m.warn("Could not find apt-mark binary, not marking package(s) as manually installed.")
+        return
+
     cmd = "%s manual %s" % (apt_mark_cmd_path, ' '.join(packages))
     rc, out, err = m.run_command(cmd)