diff --git a/langchain/retrievers/document_compressors/cohere_rerank.py b/langchain/retrievers/document_compressors/cohere_rerank.py
index 7774c3397113c..63060914c79ea 100644
--- a/langchain/retrievers/document_compressors/cohere_rerank.py
+++ b/langchain/retrievers/document_compressors/cohere_rerank.py
@@ -50,6 +50,8 @@ def validate_environment(cls, values: Dict) -> Dict:
     def compress_documents(
         self, documents: Sequence[Document], query: str
     ) -> Sequence[Document]:
+        if len(documents) == 0:  # to avoid empty api call
+            return []
         doc_list = list(documents)
         _docs = [d.page_content for d in doc_list]
         results = self.client.rerank(