A mechanism for delayed hardware upgrades in virtualization systems is disclosed. A method of the invention includes maintaining a delayed hardware upgrade mode that is applicable to one or more virtual machines (VMs) managed by a hypervisor of a host machine, receiving a command to change VM hardware presented to a VM of the one or more VMs, placing the command in a delayed command queue associated with the VM per the delayed hardware upgrade mode maintained by the hypervisor, and executing the command in the delayed command queue when it is determined that the VM has been rebooted, wherein the reboot of the VM is not directly associated with the command.