diff --git a/doc/whats-new.rst b/doc/whats-new.rst
index a32e0393bcf..40844287d24 100644
--- a/doc/whats-new.rst
+++ b/doc/whats-new.rst
@@ -140,6 +140,8 @@ Bug fixes
   By `Mathias Hauser <https://github.com/mathause>`_.
 - Fix html repr in untrusted notebooks: fallback to plain text repr. (:pull:`4053`)
   By `Benoit Bovy <https://github.com/benbovy>`_.
+- Fix :py:func:`open_rasterio` for ``WarpedVRT`` with specified ``src_crs``. (:pull:`4104`)
+  By `Dave Cole <https://github.com/dtpc>`_.
 
 Documentation
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
diff --git a/xarray/backends/rasterio_.py b/xarray/backends/rasterio_.py
index 77beffd09b1..661d5b5c6fc 100644
--- a/xarray/backends/rasterio_.py
+++ b/xarray/backends/rasterio_.py
@@ -221,14 +221,17 @@ def open_rasterio(filename, parse_coordinates=None, chunks=None, cache=None, loc
         vrt = filename
         filename = vrt.src_dataset.name
         vrt_params = dict(
+            src_crs=vrt.src_crs.to_string(),
             crs=vrt.crs.to_string(),
             resampling=vrt.resampling,
+            tolerance=vrt.tolerance,
             src_nodata=vrt.src_nodata,
             nodata=vrt.nodata,
-            tolerance=vrt.tolerance,
-            transform=vrt.transform,
             width=vrt.width,
             height=vrt.height,
+            src_transform=vrt.src_transform,
+            transform=vrt.transform,
+            dtype=vrt.working_dtype,
             warp_extras=vrt.warp_extras,
         )
 
diff --git a/xarray/tests/test_backends.py b/xarray/tests/test_backends.py
index 49a39474b54..3642c1eb9b7 100644
--- a/xarray/tests/test_backends.py
+++ b/xarray/tests/test_backends.py
@@ -4160,6 +4160,19 @@ def test_rasterio_vrt_with_transform_and_size(self):
                         assert actual_shape == expected_shape
                         assert actual_transform == expected_transform
 
+    def test_rasterio_vrt_with_src_crs(self):
+        # Test open_rasterio() support of WarpedVRT with specified src_crs
+        import rasterio
+
+        # create geotiff with no CRS and specify it manually
+        with create_tmp_geotiff(crs=None) as (tmp_file, expected):
+            src_crs = rasterio.crs.CRS({"init": "epsg:32618"})
+            with rasterio.open(tmp_file) as src:
+                assert src.crs is None
+                with rasterio.vrt.WarpedVRT(src, src_crs=src_crs) as vrt:
+                    with xr.open_rasterio(vrt) as da:
+                        assert da.crs == src_crs
+
     @network
     def test_rasterio_vrt_network(self):
         # Make sure loading w/ rasterio give same results as xarray