diff --git a/RELEASE_NOTES.md b/RELEASE_NOTES.md
index e69de29bb..a4ec44081 100644
--- a/RELEASE_NOTES.md
+++ b/RELEASE_NOTES.md
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+* adding fix for R4 when target profile is a reference, and that reference returns an empty list of target profiles
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/org.hl7.fhir.validation/src/main/java/org/hl7/fhir/validation/instance/InstanceValidator.java b/org.hl7.fhir.validation/src/main/java/org/hl7/fhir/validation/instance/InstanceValidator.java
index fdd4e5fc5..cc3fd0233 100644
--- a/org.hl7.fhir.validation/src/main/java/org/hl7/fhir/validation/instance/InstanceValidator.java
+++ b/org.hl7.fhir.validation/src/main/java/org/hl7/fhir/validation/instance/InstanceValidator.java
@@ -2602,7 +2602,10 @@ public class InstanceValidator extends BaseValidator implements IResourceValidat
       // the type has to match the specified
       String tu = isAbsolute(reference.getType()) ? reference.getType() : "http://hl7.org/fhir/StructureDefinition/" + reference.getType();
       TypeRefComponent containerType = container.getType("Reference");
-      if (!containerType.hasTargetProfile(tu) && !containerType.hasTargetProfile("http://hl7.org/fhir/StructureDefinition/Resource")) {
+      if (!containerType.hasTargetProfile(tu)
+        && !containerType.hasTargetProfile("http://hl7.org/fhir/StructureDefinition/Resource")
+        && !containerType.getTargetProfile().isEmpty()
+      ) {
         boolean matchingResource = false;
         for (CanonicalType target : containerType.getTargetProfile()) {
           StructureDefinition sd = resolveProfile(profile, target.asStringValue());
diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 9374ad20d..76eb08e49 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
 
     <properties>
         <hapi_fhir_version>5.1.0</hapi_fhir_version>
-        <validator_test_case_version>1.1.58</validator_test_case_version>
+        <validator_test_case_version>1.1.59</validator_test_case_version>
         <junit_jupiter_version>5.7.1</junit_jupiter_version>
         <junit_platform_launcher_version>1.7.1</junit_platform_launcher_version>
         <maven_surefire_version>3.0.0-M4</maven_surefire_version>