diff --git a/src/OpenTelemetry.Api/CHANGELOG.md b/src/OpenTelemetry.Api/CHANGELOG.md
index 55c3f63b434..70b7b035a0f 100644
--- a/src/OpenTelemetry.Api/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/src/OpenTelemetry.Api/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -15,6 +15,11 @@ Notes](../../RELEASENOTES.md).
 * Reduced allocations when constructing `SpanAttributes` from an array.
   ([#7698](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-dotnet/pull/7698))
 
+* Fixed parsing of an inbound `tracestate` header whose member value trimmed
+  to an empty value that previously threw an `IndexOutOfRangeException`
+  internally and could silently truncate the tracestate.
+  ([#7756](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-dotnet/pull/7756))
+
 ## 1.18.0
 
 Released 2026-Aug-21
diff --git a/src/OpenTelemetry.Api/Context/Propagation/TraceStateUtils.cs b/src/OpenTelemetry.Api/Context/Propagation/TraceStateUtils.cs
index 3ec6857fcd8..4f66d28783c 100644
--- a/src/OpenTelemetry.Api/Context/Propagation/TraceStateUtils.cs
+++ b/src/OpenTelemetry.Api/Context/Propagation/TraceStateUtils.cs
@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 // Copyright The OpenTelemetry Authors
 // SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
 
-using System.Diagnostics;
 using System.Runtime.CompilerServices;
 using OpenTelemetry.Internal;
 
@@ -26,9 +25,7 @@ internal static class TraceStateUtils
     /// <returns>True if string was parsed successfully and tracestate was recognized, false otherwise.</returns>
     internal static bool AppendTraceState(string traceStateString, List<KeyValuePair<string, string>> tracestate)
     {
-        Debug.Assert(tracestate != null, "tracestate list cannot be null");
-
-        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(traceStateString))
+        if (tracestate is null || string.IsNullOrEmpty(traceStateString))
         {
             return false;
         }
@@ -88,11 +85,7 @@ internal static bool AppendTraceState(string traceStateString, List<KeyValuePair
 
             if (!isValid)
             {
-#if NET
                 tracestate.Clear();
-#else
-                tracestate!.Clear();
-#endif
                 return false;
             }
 
@@ -101,6 +94,10 @@ internal static bool AppendTraceState(string traceStateString, List<KeyValuePair
         catch (Exception ex)
         {
             OpenTelemetryApiEventSource.Log.TracestateExtractException(ex);
+
+            // Never hand back a partially-parsed tracestate: an unexpected failure mid-parse must
+            // not leave the caller with a silently truncated subset of the members.
+            tracestate.Clear();
         }
 
         return false;
@@ -235,7 +232,7 @@ private static bool ValidateValue(ReadOnlySpan<char> value)
         // Value is opaque string up to 256 characters printable ASCII RFC0020 characters (i.e., the range
         // 0x20 to 0x7E) except comma , and =.
 
-        if (value.Length > ValueMaxSize || value[value.Length - 1] == ' ' /* '\u0020' */)
+        if (value.Length == 0 || value.Length > ValueMaxSize || value[value.Length - 1] == ' ' /* '\u0020' */)
         {
             return false;
         }
diff --git a/test/OpenTelemetry.Api.Tests/Context/Propagation/TracestateUtilsTests.cs b/test/OpenTelemetry.Api.Tests/Context/Propagation/TracestateUtilsTests.cs
index e9c0afecfa8..2efed684fe2 100644
--- a/test/OpenTelemetry.Api.Tests/Context/Propagation/TracestateUtilsTests.cs
+++ b/test/OpenTelemetry.Api.Tests/Context/Propagation/TracestateUtilsTests.cs
@@ -32,6 +32,9 @@ public void EmptyTracestate(string tracestate)
     [InlineData("k\t=v")]
     [InlineData("k=v,k=v")]
     [InlineData("k1=v1,,,k2=v2")]
+    [InlineData("k=\t")]
+    [InlineData("k=\u000B")]
+    [InlineData("b=1,a=\t,c=2")]
     [InlineData("k=morethan256......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................")]
     [InlineData("v=morethan256......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................")]
     public void InvalidTracestate(string tracestate)