diff --git a/protected/gatk-tools-protected/src/main/java/org/broadinstitute/gatk/tools/walkers/annotator/GCContent.java b/protected/gatk-tools-protected/src/main/java/org/broadinstitute/gatk/tools/walkers/annotator/GCContent.java
index 1ca9a428a..6dc097583 100644
--- a/protected/gatk-tools-protected/src/main/java/org/broadinstitute/gatk/tools/walkers/annotator/GCContent.java
+++ b/protected/gatk-tools-protected/src/main/java/org/broadinstitute/gatk/tools/walkers/annotator/GCContent.java
@@ -61,6 +61,7 @@ import org.broadinstitute.gatk.utils.BaseUtils;
 import htsjdk.variant.vcf.VCFInfoHeaderLine;
 import htsjdk.variant.variantcontext.VariantContext;
 import org.broadinstitute.gatk.utils.variant.GATKVCFConstants;
+import org.broadinstitute.gatk.utils.variant.GATKVCFHeaderLines;
 
 import java.util.Arrays;
 import java.util.HashMap;
@@ -92,7 +93,7 @@ public class GCContent extends InfoFieldAnnotation {
 
     public List<String> getKeyNames() { return Arrays.asList(GATKVCFConstants.GC_CONTENT_KEY); }
 
-    public List<VCFInfoHeaderLine> getDescriptions() { return Arrays.asList(); }
+    public List<VCFInfoHeaderLine> getDescriptions() { return Arrays.asList(GATKVCFHeaderLines.getInfoLine(getKeyNames().get(0)));}
 
     public boolean useZeroQualityReads() { return false; }
 
diff --git a/protected/gatk-tools-protected/src/test/java/org/broadinstitute/gatk/tools/walkers/annotator/VariantAnnotatorIntegrationTest.java b/protected/gatk-tools-protected/src/test/java/org/broadinstitute/gatk/tools/walkers/annotator/VariantAnnotatorIntegrationTest.java
index 864682545..2ac4bb0ea 100644
--- a/protected/gatk-tools-protected/src/test/java/org/broadinstitute/gatk/tools/walkers/annotator/VariantAnnotatorIntegrationTest.java
+++ b/protected/gatk-tools-protected/src/test/java/org/broadinstitute/gatk/tools/walkers/annotator/VariantAnnotatorIntegrationTest.java
@@ -54,9 +54,12 @@ package org.broadinstitute.gatk.tools.walkers.annotator;
 import htsjdk.tribble.readers.LineIterator;
 import htsjdk.tribble.readers.PositionalBufferedStream;
 import htsjdk.variant.variantcontext.Genotype;
+import htsjdk.variant.vcf.VCFHeader;
+import htsjdk.variant.vcf.VCFHeaderLine;
 import org.broadinstitute.gatk.engine.walkers.WalkerTest;
 import htsjdk.variant.variantcontext.VariantContext;
 import htsjdk.variant.vcf.VCFCodec;
+import org.broadinstitute.gatk.utils.variant.GATKVCFConstants;
 import org.testng.Assert;
 import org.testng.annotations.Test;
 
@@ -162,6 +165,19 @@ public class VariantAnnotatorIntegrationTest extends WalkerTest {
         Assert.assertTrue(FileUtils.readFileToString(file).contains("Annotation will not be calculated, must be called from HaplotyepCaller"));
     }
 
+    @Test
+    public void testAskingGCContent() throws IOException{
+        WalkerTestSpec spec = new WalkerTestSpec(
+                baseTestString() + " --variant " + privateTestDir + "vcfexample2.vcf -I " + validationDataLocation + "low_coverage_CEU.chr1.10k-11k.bam -L 1:10,020,000-10,021,000 -A GCContent", 1,
+                Arrays.asList("02f634fd978cf2a66738704581508569"));
+        final File outputVCF = executeTest("test file has annotations, adding GCContent annotation", spec).getFirst().get(0);
+        final VCFCodec codec = new VCFCodec();
+        final VCFHeader header = (VCFHeader) codec.readActualHeader(codec.makeSourceFromStream(new FileInputStream(outputVCF)));
+        final VCFHeaderLine infoLineGC = header.getInfoHeaderLine(GATKVCFConstants.GC_CONTENT_KEY);
+        // GC content must be a Float type
+        Assert.assertTrue(infoLineGC.toString().contains("Type=Float"));
+    }
+
     @Test
     public void testOverwritingHeader() {
         WalkerTestSpec spec = new WalkerTestSpec(
diff --git a/public/gatk-utils/src/main/java/org/broadinstitute/gatk/utils/variant/GATKVCFHeaderLines.java b/public/gatk-utils/src/main/java/org/broadinstitute/gatk/utils/variant/GATKVCFHeaderLines.java
index c4a63130b..fa8160e50 100644
--- a/public/gatk-utils/src/main/java/org/broadinstitute/gatk/utils/variant/GATKVCFHeaderLines.java
+++ b/public/gatk-utils/src/main/java/org/broadinstitute/gatk/utils/variant/GATKVCFHeaderLines.java
@@ -100,7 +100,7 @@ public class GATKVCFHeaderLines {
         addInfoLine(new VCFInfoHeaderLine(BASE_QUAL_RANK_SUM_KEY, 1, VCFHeaderLineType.Float, "Z-score from Wilcoxon rank sum test of Alt Vs. Ref base qualities"));
         addInfoLine(new VCFInfoHeaderLine(CLIPPING_RANK_SUM_KEY, 1, VCFHeaderLineType.Float, "Z-score From Wilcoxon rank sum test of Alt vs. Ref number of hard clipped bases"));
         addInfoLine(new VCFInfoHeaderLine(FISHER_STRAND_KEY, 1, VCFHeaderLineType.Float, "Phred-scaled p-value using Fisher's exact test to detect strand bias"));
-        addInfoLine(new VCFInfoHeaderLine(GC_CONTENT_KEY, 1, VCFHeaderLineType.Integer, "GC content around the variant (see docs for window size details)"));
+        addInfoLine(new VCFInfoHeaderLine(GC_CONTENT_KEY, 1, VCFHeaderLineType.Float, "GC content around the variant (see docs for window size details)"));
         addInfoLine(new VCFInfoHeaderLine(NOCALL_CHROM_KEY, 1, VCFHeaderLineType.Integer, "Number of no-called samples"));
         addInfoLine(new VCFInfoHeaderLine(GQ_MEAN_KEY, 1, VCFHeaderLineType.Float, "Mean of all GQ values"));
         addInfoLine(new VCFInfoHeaderLine(GQ_STDEV_KEY, 1, VCFHeaderLineType.Float, "Standard deviation of all GQ values"));