diff --git a/news/prompt_switch_to_ptk.rst b/news/prompt_switch_to_ptk.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..dd5c1b4e7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/news/prompt_switch_to_ptk.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+**Added:**
+
+* <news item>
+
+**Changed:**
+
+* prompt: Switching to prompt_toolkit in edge case of sending stdin to interactive mode (#5462 #5517).
+
+**Deprecated:**
+
+* <news item>
+
+**Removed:**
+
+* <news item>
+
+**Fixed:**
+
+* <news item>
+
+**Security:**
+
+* <news item>
diff --git a/xonsh/shell.py b/xonsh/shell.py
index f54c53509..2bab837ee 100644
--- a/xonsh/shell.py
+++ b/xonsh/shell.py
@@ -202,9 +202,19 @@ class Shell:
         if is_class(backend):
             cls = backend
         else:
+            """
+            There is an edge case that we're using mostly in integration tests:
+            `echo 'echo 1' | xonsh -i` and it's not working with `TERM=dumb` (#5462 #5517)
+            because `dumb` is readline where stdin is not supported yet. PR is very welcome!
+            So in this case we need to force using prompt_toolkit.
+            """
+            is_stdin_to_interactive = (
+                XSH.env.get("XONSH_INTERACTIVE", False) and not sys.stdin.isatty()
+            )
+
             if backend == "none":
                 from xonsh.base_shell import BaseShell as cls
-            elif backend == "prompt_toolkit":
+            elif backend == "prompt_toolkit" or is_stdin_to_interactive:
                 from xonsh.ptk_shell.shell import PromptToolkitShell as cls
             elif backend == "readline":
                 from xonsh.readline_shell import ReadlineShell as cls