diff --git a/CHANGELOG.rst b/CHANGELOG.rst
index 4d7a65966..86c4dae97 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.rst
+++ b/CHANGELOG.rst
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ Scripting improvements
 - ``fish_indent`` allows to write inline variable assignments on multiple lines (ending in a backslash), instead of joining them into one line (:issue:`7955`).
 - fish gained a ``--no-config`` option to disable reading the configuration. This applies both to the user's and the admin's config.fish (typically in /etc/fish/config.fish) and snippets and also sets $fish_function_path to just the functions shipped with fish and disables universal variables and history. (:issue:`7921`, :issue:`1256`).
 - When universal variables are unavailable for some reason, setting a universal variable now sets a global variable instead (:issue:`7921`).
+- ``$last_pid`` now reports the pid of the last process in the pipeline, allowing it to be used in scripts (:issue:`5036`, :issue:`5832`, :issue:`7721`).
 - ``process-exit`` event handlers now receive the same value as ``$status`` in all cases, instead of receiving -1 when the exit was due to a signal.
 - ``process-exit`` event handlers for pid 0 also received ``JOB_EXIT`` events; this has been fixed.
 
diff --git a/src/exec.cpp b/src/exec.cpp
index 53e688199..9a7172974 100644
--- a/src/exec.cpp
+++ b/src/exec.cpp
@@ -1123,9 +1123,12 @@ bool exec_job(parser_t &parser, const shared_ptr<job_t> &j, const io_chain_t &bl
 
     // If exec_error then a backgrounded job would have been terminated before it was ever assigned
     // a pgroup, so error out before setting last_pid.
-    auto pgid = j->get_pgid();
-    if (!j->is_foreground() && pgid.has_value()) {
-        parser.vars().set_one(L"last_pid", ENV_GLOBAL, to_string(*pgid));
+    if (!j->is_foreground()) {
+        if (maybe_t<pid_t> last_pid = j->get_last_pid()) {
+            parser.vars().set_one(L"last_pid", ENV_GLOBAL, to_string(*last_pid));
+        } else {
+            parser.vars().set_empty(L"last_pid", ENV_GLOBAL);
+        }
     }
 
     j->continue_job(parser, !j->is_initially_background());
diff --git a/src/proc.cpp b/src/proc.cpp
index 3dc511a81..6823e251a 100644
--- a/src/proc.cpp
+++ b/src/proc.cpp
@@ -953,6 +953,14 @@ bool job_t::is_foreground() const { return group->is_foreground(); }
 
 maybe_t<pid_t> job_t::get_pgid() const { return group->get_pgid(); }
 
+maybe_t<pid_t> job_t::get_last_pid() const {
+    for (auto iter = processes.rbegin(); iter != processes.rend(); ++iter) {
+        const process_t *proc = iter->get();
+        if (proc->pid > 0) return proc->pid;
+    }
+    return none();
+}
+
 job_id_t job_t::job_id() const { return group->get_id(); }
 
 void job_t::continue_job(parser_t &parser, bool in_foreground) {
diff --git a/src/proc.h b/src/proc.h
index aaac1a960..289cab57d 100644
--- a/src/proc.h
+++ b/src/proc.h
@@ -392,6 +392,11 @@ class job_t {
     /// This may also be fish itself.
     maybe_t<pid_t> get_pgid() const;
 
+    /// \return the pid of the last external process in the job.
+    /// This may be none if the job consists of just internal fish functions or builtins.
+    /// This will never be fish's own pid.
+    maybe_t<pid_t> get_last_pid() const;
+
     /// The id of this job.
     /// This is user-visible, is recycled, and may be -1.
     job_id_t job_id() const;