diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/iosxr_netconf_config_commit_fix.yaml b/changelogs/fragments/iosxr_netconf_config_commit_fix.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..429f3c5c595
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/iosxr_netconf_config_commit_fix.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+bugfixes:
+- Confirmed commit fails with TypeError in IOS XR netconf plugin (https://github.com/ansible-collections/cisco.iosxr/issues/74)
diff --git a/lib/ansible/plugins/netconf/__init__.py b/lib/ansible/plugins/netconf/__init__.py
index b181f37696a..529cc260675 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/plugins/netconf/__init__.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/plugins/netconf/__init__.py
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ from functools import wraps
 
 from ansible.errors import AnsibleError
 from ansible.plugins import AnsiblePlugin
-from ansible.module_utils._text import to_native
+from ansible.module_utils._text import to_native, to_text
 from ansible.module_utils.basic import missing_required_lib
 
 try:
@@ -269,6 +269,7 @@ class NetconfBase(AnsiblePlugin):
                         and set a token on the ongoing confirmed commit
         :return: Returns xml string containing the RPC response received from remote host
         """
+        timeout = to_text(timeout, errors='surrogate_or_strict')
         resp = self.m.commit(confirmed=confirmed, timeout=timeout, persist=persist)
         return resp.data_xml if hasattr(resp, 'data_xml') else resp.xml
 
diff --git a/lib/ansible/plugins/netconf/iosxr.py b/lib/ansible/plugins/netconf/iosxr.py
index 228c5828ab1..2bcbfbf8eea 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/plugins/netconf/iosxr.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/plugins/netconf/iosxr.py
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ import json
 import re
 import collections
 
-from ansible.module_utils._text import to_native
+from ansible.module_utils._text import to_native, to_text
 from ansible.module_utils.network.common.netconf import remove_namespaces
 from ansible.module_utils.network.iosxr.iosxr import build_xml, etree_find
 from ansible.errors import AnsibleConnectionFailure
@@ -181,6 +181,8 @@ class Netconf(NetconfBase):
             raise Exception(to_xml(exc.xml))
 
     def commit(self, confirmed=False, timeout=None, persist=None, remove_ns=False):
+        timeout = to_text(timeout, errors='surrogate_or_strict')
+
         try:
             resp = self.m.commit(confirmed=confirmed, timeout=timeout, persist=persist)
             if remove_ns:
diff --git a/test/integration/targets/netconf_config/tests/iosxr/basic.yaml b/test/integration/targets/netconf_config/tests/iosxr/basic.yaml
index c2cd38974de..47af1306ec1 100644
--- a/test/integration/targets/netconf_config/tests/iosxr/basic.yaml
+++ b/test/integration/targets/netconf_config/tests/iosxr/basic.yaml
@@ -11,4 +11,24 @@
     that:
       - "'backup_path' in result"
 
+- name: test confirm commit
+  netconf_config:
+    target: "candidate"
+    error_option: "rollback-on-error"
+    commit: yes
+    confirm: 10
+    default_operation: "merge"
+    content: |
+      <nc:config xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0" xmlns:nc="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0">
+      <cdp xmlns="http://cisco.com/ns/yang/Cisco-IOS-XR-cdp-cfg">
+      <enable>true</enable>
+      </cdp>
+      </nc:config>
+  register: result
+  ignore_errors: True
+
+- assert:
+    that:
+      - "'failed' not in result"
+
 - debug: msg="END netconf_config iosxr/basic.yaml on connection={{ ansible_connection }}"