diff --git a/llama_stack/providers/remote/inference/vllm/vllm.py b/llama_stack/providers/remote/inference/vllm/vllm.py
index 317d05207..81c746cce 100644
--- a/llama_stack/providers/remote/inference/vllm/vllm.py
+++ b/llama_stack/providers/remote/inference/vllm/vllm.py
@@ -176,10 +176,8 @@ class VLLMInferenceAdapter(Inference, ModelsProtocolPrivate):
         media_present = request_has_media(request)
         if isinstance(request, ChatCompletionRequest):
             if media_present:
-                # vllm does not seem to work well with image urls, so we download the images
                 input_dict["messages"] = [
-                    await convert_message_to_openai_dict(m, download=True)
-                    for m in request.messages
+                    await convert_message_to_openai_dict(m) for m in request.messages
                 ]
             else:
                 input_dict["prompt"] = await chat_completion_request_to_prompt(
diff --git a/tests/client-sdk/inference/dog.png b/tests/client-sdk/inference/dog.png
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..2d502e606
Binary files /dev/null and b/tests/client-sdk/inference/dog.png differ
diff --git a/tests/client-sdk/inference/test_inference.py b/tests/client-sdk/inference/test_inference.py
index 19314e4ab..ac2c4ce38 100644
--- a/tests/client-sdk/inference/test_inference.py
+++ b/tests/client-sdk/inference/test_inference.py
@@ -4,6 +4,9 @@
 # This source code is licensed under the terms described in the LICENSE file in
 # the root directory of this source tree.
 
+import base64
+import os
+
 import pytest
 from pydantic import BaseModel
 
@@ -69,6 +72,16 @@ def get_weather_tool_definition():
     }
 
 
+@pytest.fixture
+def base64_image_url():
+    image_path = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "dog.png")
+    with open(image_path, "rb") as image_file:
+        # Convert the image to base64
+        base64_string = base64.b64encode(image_file.read()).decode("utf-8")
+        base64_url = f"data:image;base64,{base64_string}"
+        return base64_url
+
+
 def test_completion_non_streaming(llama_stack_client, text_model_id):
     response = llama_stack_client.inference.completion(
         content="Complete the sentence using one word: Roses are red, violets are ",
@@ -356,3 +369,31 @@ def test_image_chat_completion_streaming(llama_stack_client, vision_model_id):
         streamed_content += chunk.event.delta.text.lower()
     assert len(streamed_content) > 0
     assert any(expected in streamed_content for expected in {"dog", "puppy", "pup"})
+
+
+def test_image_chat_completion_base64_url(
+    llama_stack_client, vision_model_id, base64_image_url
+):
+
+    message = {
+        "role": "user",
+        "content": [
+            {
+                "type": "image",
+                "url": {
+                    "uri": base64_image_url,
+                },
+            },
+            {
+                "type": "text",
+                "text": "Describe what is in this image.",
+            },
+        ],
+    }
+    response = llama_stack_client.inference.chat_completion(
+        model_id=vision_model_id,
+        messages=[message],
+        stream=False,
+    )
+    message_content = response.completion_message.content.lower().strip()
+    assert len(message_content) > 0