A method is described for coalescing input/output (IO) interrupts to a virtual machine (VM) running on a host computer. At a virtualization layer of the host computer that supports execution of the VM receives an IO interrupt in response to a completion of an IO request of the VM, wherein a transmission of the IO request by the VM to an IO device bypasses the virtualization layer. The virtualization layer then determines whether the VM has responded to a most recently delivered IO interrupt to the VM by the virtualization layer, and drops the IO interrupt if the VM has not responded to the most recently delivered IO interrupt, thereby failing to deliver the IO interrupt to the VM.