diff --git a/protocols/gossipsub/CHANGELOG.md b/protocols/gossipsub/CHANGELOG.md
index b143b72c15c..dba3d12e879 100644
--- a/protocols/gossipsub/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/protocols/gossipsub/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -19,13 +19,16 @@
 
 - Fix incorrect default values in ConfigBuilder
   See [PR 6113](https://github.com/libp2p/rust-libp2p/pull/6113)
-  
+
 - Remove duplicated config `set_topic_max_transmit_size` method, prefer `max_transmit_size_for_topic`.
   See [PR 6173](https://github.com/libp2p/rust-libp2p/pull/6173).
 
 - Switch the internal `async-channel` used to dispatch messages from `NetworkBehaviour` to the `ConnectionHandler`
   with an internal priority queue. See [PR 6175](https://github.com/libp2p/rust-libp2p/pull/6175)
 
+- gossipsub: do early return in for an empty input
+  See [PR 6208](https://github.com/libp2p/rust-libp2p/pull/6208).
+
 ## 0.49.2
 
 - Relax `Behaviour::with_metrics` requirements, do not require DataTransform and TopicSubscriptionFilter to also impl Default
diff --git a/protocols/gossipsub/src/queue.rs b/protocols/gossipsub/src/queue.rs
index ff04392e618..971ae801f83 100644
--- a/protocols/gossipsub/src/queue.rs
+++ b/protocols/gossipsub/src/queue.rs
@@ -81,6 +81,10 @@ impl Queue {
     /// Remove pending low priority Publish and Forward messages.
     /// Returns the number of messages removed.
     pub(crate) fn remove_data_messages(&mut self, message_ids: &[MessageId]) -> usize {
+        if message_ids.is_empty() {
+            return 0;
+        }
+
         let mut count = 0;
         self.non_priority.retain(|message| match message {
             RpcOut::Publish { message_id, .. } | RpcOut::Forward { message_id, .. } => {