diff --git a/mace/cli/active_learning_md.py b/mace/cli/active_learning_md.py
index a26be698..9cf4f4a8 100644
--- a/mace/cli/active_learning_md.py
+++ b/mace/cli/active_learning_md.py
@@ -14,7 +14,9 @@
 
 
 def parse_args() -> argparse.Namespace:
-    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
+    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
+        formatter_class=argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter,
+    )
     parser.add_argument("--config", help="path to XYZ configurations", required=True)
     parser.add_argument(
         "--config_index", help="index of configuration", type=int, default=-1
diff --git a/mace/cli/create_lammps_model.py b/mace/cli/create_lammps_model.py
index 1917ab8e..507a2cd0 100644
--- a/mace/cli/create_lammps_model.py
+++ b/mace/cli/create_lammps_model.py
@@ -7,7 +7,9 @@
 
 
 def parse_args():
-    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
+    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
+        formatter_class=argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter,
+    )
     parser.add_argument(
         "model_path",
         type=str,
diff --git a/mace/cli/eval_configs.py b/mace/cli/eval_configs.py
index 86470f8d..d00c54c6 100644
--- a/mace/cli/eval_configs.py
+++ b/mace/cli/eval_configs.py
@@ -16,7 +16,9 @@
 
 
 def parse_args() -> argparse.Namespace:
-    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
+    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
+        formatter_class=argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter,
+    )
     parser.add_argument("--configs", help="path to XYZ configurations", required=True)
     parser.add_argument("--model", help="path to model", required=True)
     parser.add_argument("--output", help="output path", required=True)
diff --git a/mace/cli/fine_tuning_select.py b/mace/cli/fine_tuning_select.py
index 2fa5f644..94baf0dd 100644
--- a/mace/cli/fine_tuning_select.py
+++ b/mace/cli/fine_tuning_select.py
@@ -20,7 +20,9 @@
 
 
 def parse_args() -> argparse.Namespace:
-    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
+    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
+        formatter_class=argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter,
+    )
     parser.add_argument(
         "--configs_pt",
         help="path to XYZ configurations for the pretraining",
diff --git a/mace/cli/plot_train.py b/mace/cli/plot_train.py
index c249d76a..a1c424df 100644
--- a/mace/cli/plot_train.py
+++ b/mace/cli/plot_train.py
@@ -60,7 +60,10 @@ def parse_training_results(path: str) -> List[dict]:
 
 
 def parse_args() -> argparse.Namespace:
-    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="Plot mace training statistics")
+    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
+        description="Plot mace training statistics",
+        formatter_class=argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter,
+    )
     parser.add_argument(
         "--path", help="path to results file or directory", required=True
     )
diff --git a/mace/tools/arg_parser.py b/mace/tools/arg_parser.py
index 70428c8d..e492c827 100644
--- a/mace/tools/arg_parser.py
+++ b/mace/tools/arg_parser.py
@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@ def build_default_arg_parser() -> argparse.ArgumentParser:
 
         parser = configargparse.ArgumentParser(
             config_file_parser_class=configargparse.YAMLConfigFileParser,
+            formatter_class=argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter,
         )
         parser.add(
             "--config",
@@ -23,7 +24,9 @@ def build_default_arg_parser() -> argparse.ArgumentParser:
             help="config file to agregate options",
         )
     except ImportError:
-        parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
+        parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
+            formatter_class=argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter,
+        )
 
     # Name and seed
     parser.add_argument("--name", help="experiment name", required=True)
@@ -704,7 +707,9 @@ def build_default_arg_parser() -> argparse.ArgumentParser:
 
 
 def build_preprocess_arg_parser() -> argparse.ArgumentParser:
-    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
+    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
+        formatter_class=argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter,
+    )
     parser.add_argument(
         "--train_file",
         help="Training set h5 file",