diff --git a/terraform/evaluate.go b/terraform/evaluate.go
index 3fe5f5c4d..342e695b7 100644
--- a/terraform/evaluate.go
+++ b/terraform/evaluate.go
@@ -452,8 +452,16 @@ func (d *evaluationStateData) GetResourceInstance(addr addrs.ResourceInstance, r
 
 	ms := d.Evaluator.State.ModuleByPath(d.ModulePath)
 	if ms == nil {
-		// Not evaluated yet?
-		return cty.DynamicVal, diags
+		// If we have no module state in the apply walk, that suggests we've hit
+		// a rather awkward edge-case: the resource this variable refers to
+		// has count = 0 and is the only resource processed so far on this walk,
+		// and so we've ended up not creating any resource states yet. We don't
+		// create a module state until the first resource is written into it,
+		// so the module state doesn't exist when we get here.
+		//
+		// In this case we act as we would if we had been passed a module
+		// with an empty resource state map.
+		ms = &ModuleState{}
 	}
 
 	// Note that the state structs currently have confusing legacy names: