diff --git a/packages/@tailwindcss-cli/src/commands/build/index.ts b/packages/@tailwindcss-cli/src/commands/build/index.ts
index 01d646a6abdf..db0055f8883b 100644
--- a/packages/@tailwindcss-cli/src/commands/build/index.ts
+++ b/packages/@tailwindcss-cli/src/commands/build/index.ts
@@ -479,10 +479,14 @@ async function createWatchers(dirs: string[], cb: (files: string[]) => void) {
 
       await Promise.all(
         events.map(async (event) => {
-          // We currently don't handle deleted files because it doesn't influence
-          // the CSS output. This is because we currently keep all scanned
-          // candidates in a cache for performance reasons.
-          if (event.type === 'delete') return
+          // We track deleted files so that a full rebuild can surface missing
+          // file errors (e.g. a deleted config dependency). Deleted content files
+          // are also tracked here but are harmless — they still hit the candidate
+          // cache so scanFiles returns empty and we bail early.
+          if (event.type === 'delete') {
+            files.add(event.path)
+            return
+          }
 
           // Ignore directory changes. We only care about file changes
           let stats: Stats | null = null