diff --git a/launcher/src/main/java/org/apache/spark/launcher/SparkSubmitCommandBuilder.java b/launcher/src/main/java/org/apache/spark/launcher/SparkSubmitCommandBuilder.java
index f603e100fd2eb..383c3f60a595b 100644
--- a/launcher/src/main/java/org/apache/spark/launcher/SparkSubmitCommandBuilder.java
+++ b/launcher/src/main/java/org/apache/spark/launcher/SparkSubmitCommandBuilder.java
@@ -390,9 +390,7 @@ boolean isClientMode(Map<String, String> userProps) {
     String userMaster = firstNonEmpty(master, userProps.get(SparkLauncher.SPARK_MASTER));
     String userDeployMode = firstNonEmpty(deployMode, userProps.get(SparkLauncher.DEPLOY_MODE));
     // Default master is "local[*]", so assume client mode in that case
-    return userMaster == null ||
-      "client".equals(userDeployMode) ||
-      (!userMaster.equals("yarn") && userDeployMode == null);
+    return userMaster == null || userDeployMode == null || "client".equals(userDeployMode);
   }
 
   /**
diff --git a/launcher/src/test/java/org/apache/spark/launcher/SparkSubmitCommandBuilderSuite.java b/launcher/src/test/java/org/apache/spark/launcher/SparkSubmitCommandBuilderSuite.java
index 32a91b1789412..752e8d4c23f8b 100644
--- a/launcher/src/test/java/org/apache/spark/launcher/SparkSubmitCommandBuilderSuite.java
+++ b/launcher/src/test/java/org/apache/spark/launcher/SparkSubmitCommandBuilderSuite.java
@@ -250,6 +250,26 @@ public void testMissingAppResource() {
     new SparkSubmitCommandBuilder().buildSparkSubmitArgs();
   }
 
+  @Test
+  public void testIsClientMode() {
+    // Default master is "local[*]"
+    SparkSubmitCommandBuilder builder = newCommandBuilder(Collections.emptyList());
+    assertTrue("By default application run in local mode",
+      builder.isClientMode(Collections.emptyMap()));
+    // --master yarn or it can be any RM
+    List<String> sparkSubmitArgs = Arrays.asList(parser.MASTER, "yarn");
+    builder = newCommandBuilder(sparkSubmitArgs);
+    assertTrue("By default deploy mode is client", builder.isClientMode(Collections.emptyMap()));
+    // --master yarn and set spark.submit.deployMode to client
+    Map<String, String> userProps = new HashMap<>();
+    userProps.put("spark.submit.deployMode", "client");
+    assertTrue(builder.isClientMode(userProps));
+    // --master mesos --deploy-mode cluster
+    sparkSubmitArgs = Arrays.asList(parser.MASTER, "mesos", parser.DEPLOY_MODE, "cluster");
+    builder = newCommandBuilder(sparkSubmitArgs);
+    assertFalse(builder.isClientMode(Collections.emptyMap()));
+  }
+
   private void testCmdBuilder(boolean isDriver, boolean useDefaultPropertyFile) throws Exception {
     final String DRIVER_DEFAULT_PARAM = "-Ddriver-default";
     final String DRIVER_EXTRA_PARAM = "-Ddriver-extra";