diff --git a/lib/ansible/modules/cloud/amazon/ec2_instance_facts.py b/lib/ansible/modules/cloud/amazon/ec2_instance_facts.py
index 692f10c65b..ce99744b7e 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/modules/cloud/amazon/ec2_instance_facts.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/modules/cloud/amazon/ec2_instance_facts.py
@@ -500,8 +500,7 @@ def list_ec2_instances(connection, module):
 
     # Turn the boto3 result in to ansible friendly tag dictionary
     for instance in snaked_instances:
-        if 'tags' in instance:
-            instance['tags'] = boto3_tag_list_to_ansible_dict(instance['tags'])
+        instance['tags'] = boto3_tag_list_to_ansible_dict(instance.get('tags', []), 'key', 'value')
 
     module.exit_json(instances=snaked_instances)