diff --git a/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/PMD.java b/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/PMD.java
index 9c03be6a87..c0efe783ec 100644
--- a/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/PMD.java
+++ b/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/PMD.java
@@ -361,6 +361,8 @@ public class PMD {
         } else {
             new MonoThreadProcessor(configuration).processFiles(ruleSetFactory, files, ctx, renderers);
         }
+
+        IOUtil.tryCloseClassLoader(configuration.getClassLoader());
     }
 
     private static void sortFiles(final PMDConfiguration configuration, final List<DataSource> files) {
diff --git a/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/ant/internal/PMDTaskImpl.java b/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/ant/internal/PMDTaskImpl.java
index 0c91f74439..6ccb8e7008 100644
--- a/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/ant/internal/PMDTaskImpl.java
+++ b/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/ant/internal/PMDTaskImpl.java
@@ -3,7 +3,6 @@
  */
 package net.sourceforge.pmd.ant.internal;
 
-import java.io.Closeable;
 import java.io.File;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.PrintWriter;
@@ -40,6 +39,7 @@ import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.LanguageRegistry;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.LanguageVersion;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.renderers.AbstractRenderer;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.renderers.Renderer;
+import net.sourceforge.pmd.util.IOUtil;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.util.StringUtil;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.util.datasource.DataSource;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.util.datasource.FileDataSource;
@@ -268,13 +268,7 @@ public class PMDTaskImpl {
             doTask();
         } finally {
             logManager.close();
-            tryCloseClassLoader(configuration.getClassLoader());
-        }
-    }
-
-    private void tryCloseClassLoader(ClassLoader classLoader) {
-        if (classLoader instanceof Closeable) {
-            IOUtils.closeQuietly((Closeable)classLoader);
+            IOUtil.tryCloseClassLoader(configuration.getClassLoader());
         }
     }
 
diff --git a/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/util/IOUtil.java b/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/util/IOUtil.java
index 37f6cb2705..e2d21037d2 100644
--- a/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/util/IOUtil.java
+++ b/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/util/IOUtil.java
@@ -5,12 +5,15 @@ package net.sourceforge.pmd.util;
 
 import java.io.BufferedReader;
 import java.io.BufferedWriter;
+import java.io.Closeable;
 import java.io.FileWriter;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
 import java.io.Reader;
 import java.io.Writer;
 
+import org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils;
+
 /**
  * 
  * @author Brian Remedios
@@ -45,4 +48,11 @@ public final class IOUtil {
         }
         return in;
     }
+
+    public static void tryCloseClassLoader(ClassLoader classLoader) {
+        if (classLoader instanceof Closeable) {
+            IOUtils.closeQuietly((Closeable)classLoader);
+        }
+    }
+
 }