diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index a7ba410ed9..4c9cff1e65 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -85,6 +85,8 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
   (<https://github.com/openvinotoolkit/datumaro/pull/1360>)
 - Fix resize transform for RleMask annotation
 - (<https://github.com/openvinotoolkit/datumaro/pull/1361>)
+- Fix import YOLO variants from extractor when `urls` is not specified
+  (<https://github.com/openvinotoolkit/datumaro/pull/1362>)
 
 ## Jan. 2024 Release 1.5.2
 ### Enhancements
diff --git a/src/datumaro/plugins/data_formats/yolo/base.py b/src/datumaro/plugins/data_formats/yolo/base.py
index 39e5141f5b..1778cc1a9c 100644
--- a/src/datumaro/plugins/data_formats/yolo/base.py
+++ b/src/datumaro/plugins/data_formats/yolo/base.py
@@ -316,6 +316,15 @@ def __init__(
         if not osp.isdir(config_path):
             raise DatasetImportError(f"{config_path} should be a directory.")
 
+        if not urls:
+            raise DatasetImportError(
+                f"`urls` should be specified for {self.__class__.__name__}, "
+                f"if you want to import a dataset with using this {self.__class__.__name__} directly. "
+                "In most case, it happens by giving an incorrect format name to the import interface. "
+                "Please consider to import your dataset with this format name, 'yolo', "
+                "such as `Dataset.import_from(..., format='yolo')`."
+            )
+
         rootpath = self._get_rootpath(config_path)
 
         self._image_info = YoloStrictBase.parse_image_info(rootpath, image_info)