diff --git a/model/pipeline/src/main/proto/org/apache/beam/model/pipeline/v1/metrics.proto b/model/pipeline/src/main/proto/org/apache/beam/model/pipeline/v1/metrics.proto
index d5951c23c10e..fcce35394b91 100644
--- a/model/pipeline/src/main/proto/org/apache/beam/model/pipeline/v1/metrics.proto
+++ b/model/pipeline/src/main/proto/org/apache/beam/model/pipeline/v1/metrics.proto
@@ -457,7 +457,7 @@ message MonitoringInfo {
     SPANNER_TABLE_ID = 25 [(label_props) = { name: "SPANNER_TABLE_ID" }];
     SPANNER_INSTANCE_ID = 26 [(label_props) = { name: "SPANNER_INSTANCE_ID" }];
     SPANNER_QUERY_NAME = 27 [(label_props) = { name: "SPANNER_QUERY_NAME" }];
-    // Label which if has a "true" value indicates that the metric is intended 
+    // Label which if has a "true" value indicates that the metric is intended
     // to be aggregated per-worker.
     PER_WORKER_METRIC = 28 [(label_props) = { name: "PER_WORKER_METRIC" }];
   }
@@ -517,6 +517,10 @@ message MonitoringInfoTypeUrns {
     //   - sum:   beam:coder:varint:v1
     //   - min:   beam:coder:varint:v1
     //   - max:   beam:coder:varint:v1
+    //
+    // Note that when count is zero, the SDK may not send sum, min, and max in
+    // the response. If those fields are included in the payload, runners should
+    // omit them.
     DISTRIBUTION_INT64_TYPE = 2 [(org.apache.beam.model.pipeline.v1.beam_urn) =
                                      "beam:metrics:distribution_int64:v1"];
 
@@ -531,6 +535,10 @@ message MonitoringInfoTypeUrns {
     //   - sum:   beam:coder:double:v1
     //   - min:   beam:coder:double:v1
     //   - max:   beam:coder:double:v1
+    //
+    // Note that when count is zero, the SDK may not send sum, min, and max in
+    // the response. If those fields are included in the payload, runners should
+    // omit them.
     DISTRIBUTION_DOUBLE_TYPE = 3 [(org.apache.beam.model.pipeline.v1.beam_urn) =
                                  "beam:metrics:distribution_double:v1"];
 
diff --git a/sdks/go/pkg/beam/runners/prism/internal/jobservices/metrics.go b/sdks/go/pkg/beam/runners/prism/internal/jobservices/metrics.go
index bbbdfd1eba4f..12d935815461 100644
--- a/sdks/go/pkg/beam/runners/prism/internal/jobservices/metrics.go
+++ b/sdks/go/pkg/beam/runners/prism/internal/jobservices/metrics.go
@@ -326,6 +326,12 @@ func (m *distributionInt64) accumulate(pyld []byte) error {
 	if dist.Count, err = coder.DecodeVarInt(buf); err != nil {
 		return err
 	}
+	if dist.Count == 0 {
+		// When there is no elements reported, the payload may contain the values
+		// for count, sum, min and max, or it may contain only one 0x00 byte for
+		// count. No matter what, we will skip aggregation in this case.
+		return nil
+	}
 	if dist.Sum, err = coder.DecodeVarInt(buf); err != nil {
 		return err
 	}