diff --git a/parquet-variant-compute/src/variant_get.rs b/parquet-variant-compute/src/variant_get.rs
index 3ac6d2be6c72..bcac113669de 100644
--- a/parquet-variant-compute/src/variant_get.rs
+++ b/parquet-variant-compute/src/variant_get.rs
@@ -304,7 +304,7 @@ mod test {
     use arrow::buffer::NullBuffer;
     use arrow::compute::CastOptions;
     use arrow_schema::{DataType, Field, FieldRef, Fields};
-    use parquet_variant::{Variant, VariantPath};
+    use parquet_variant::{Variant, VariantPath, EMPTY_VARIANT_METADATA_BYTES};
 
     use crate::json_to_variant;
     use crate::variant_array::{ShreddedVariantFieldArray, StructArrayBuilder};
@@ -701,8 +701,10 @@ mod test {
             fn $func() -> ArrayRef {
                 // At the time of writing, the `VariantArrayBuilder` does not support shredding.
                 // so we must construct the array manually.  see https://github.com/apache/arrow-rs/issues/7895
-                let (metadata, _value) = { parquet_variant::VariantBuilder::new().finish() };
-                let metadata = BinaryViewArray::from_iter_values(std::iter::repeat_n(&metadata, 3));
+                let metadata = BinaryViewArray::from_iter_values(std::iter::repeat_n(
+                    EMPTY_VARIANT_METADATA_BYTES,
+                    3,
+                ));
                 let typed_value = $array_type::from(vec![
                     Some(<$primitive_type>::try_from(1u8).unwrap()),
                     Some(<$primitive_type>::try_from(2u8).unwrap()),
@@ -1032,8 +1034,6 @@ mod test {
     /// }
     /// ```
     fn all_null_variant_array() -> ArrayRef {
-        let (metadata, _value) = { parquet_variant::VariantBuilder::new().finish() };
-
         let nulls = NullBuffer::from(vec![
             false, // row 0 is null
             false, // row 1 is null
@@ -1041,7 +1041,8 @@ mod test {
         ]);
 
         // metadata is the same for all rows (though they're all null)
-        let metadata = BinaryViewArray::from_iter_values(std::iter::repeat_n(&metadata, 3));
+        let metadata =
+            BinaryViewArray::from_iter_values(std::iter::repeat_n(EMPTY_VARIANT_METADATA_BYTES, 3));
 
         let struct_array = StructArrayBuilder::new()
             .with_field("metadata", Arc::new(metadata), false)
@@ -2502,8 +2503,8 @@ mod test {
             .build();
 
         // Build final VariantArray with top-level nulls
-        let (metadata, _) = parquet_variant::VariantBuilder::new().finish();
-        let metadata_array = BinaryViewArray::from_iter_values(std::iter::repeat_n(&metadata, 4));
+        let metadata_array =
+            BinaryViewArray::from_iter_values(std::iter::repeat_n(EMPTY_VARIANT_METADATA_BYTES, 4));
         let nulls = NullBuffer::from(vec![
             true,  // row 0: inner struct exists with typed_value=42
             true,  // row 1: inner field NULL
diff --git a/parquet-variant/src/variant.rs b/parquet-variant/src/variant.rs
index 3dae4daa0ff8..cc4c3bcadd66 100644
--- a/parquet-variant/src/variant.rs
+++ b/parquet-variant/src/variant.rs
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@
 
 pub use self::decimal::{VariantDecimal16, VariantDecimal4, VariantDecimal8};
 pub use self::list::VariantList;
-pub use self::metadata::VariantMetadata;
+pub use self::metadata::{VariantMetadata, EMPTY_VARIANT_METADATA, EMPTY_VARIANT_METADATA_BYTES};
 pub use self::object::VariantObject;
 use crate::decoder::{
     self, get_basic_type, get_primitive_type, VariantBasicType, VariantPrimitiveType,
diff --git a/parquet-variant/src/variant/metadata.rs b/parquet-variant/src/variant/metadata.rs
index 1c9da6bcc0cf..941247c9f23d 100644
--- a/parquet-variant/src/variant/metadata.rs
+++ b/parquet-variant/src/variant/metadata.rs
@@ -141,6 +141,39 @@ pub struct VariantMetadata<'m> {
 // could increase the size of Variant. All those size increases could hurt performance.
 const _: () = crate::utils::expect_size_of::<VariantMetadata>(32);
 
+/// The canonical byte slice corresponding to an empty metadata dictionary.
+///
+/// ```
+/// # use parquet_variant::{EMPTY_VARIANT_METADATA_BYTES, VariantMetadata, WritableMetadataBuilder};
+/// let mut metadata_builder = WritableMetadataBuilder::default();
+/// metadata_builder.finish();
+/// let metadata_bytes = metadata_builder.into_inner();
+/// assert_eq!(&metadata_bytes, EMPTY_VARIANT_METADATA_BYTES);
+/// ```
+pub const EMPTY_VARIANT_METADATA_BYTES: &[u8] = &[1, 0, 0];
+
+/// The empty metadata dictionary.
+///
+/// ```
+/// # use parquet_variant::{EMPTY_VARIANT_METADATA, VariantMetadata, WritableMetadataBuilder};
+/// let mut metadata_builder = WritableMetadataBuilder::default();
+/// metadata_builder.finish();
+/// let metadata_bytes = metadata_builder.into_inner();
+/// let empty_metadata = VariantMetadata::try_new(&metadata_bytes).unwrap();
+/// assert_eq!(empty_metadata, EMPTY_VARIANT_METADATA);
+/// ```
+pub const EMPTY_VARIANT_METADATA: VariantMetadata = VariantMetadata {
+    bytes: EMPTY_VARIANT_METADATA_BYTES,
+    header: VariantMetadataHeader {
+        version: CORRECT_VERSION_VALUE,
+        is_sorted: false,
+        offset_size: OffsetSizeBytes::One,
+    },
+    dictionary_size: 0,
+    first_value_byte: 3,
+    validated: true,
+};
+
 impl<'m> VariantMetadata<'m> {
     /// Attempts to interpret `bytes` as a variant metadata instance, with full [validation] of all
     /// dictionary entries.