diff --git a/CHANGES.rst b/CHANGES.rst
index 52905982..3fe583ef 100644
--- a/CHANGES.rst
+++ b/CHANGES.rst
@@ -19,6 +19,8 @@ Version 3.X.X (2019-09-XX)
   defer the validation in case of inconsistencies to the final commit. Exception
   messages will be less verbose in these cases as before.
 - Add support for pyarrow 0.15.0
+- Fix an issue where an empty dataframe of a partition in a multi-table dataset
+  would raise a schema validation exception
 - Remove support for pyarrow < 0.13.0
 
 
diff --git a/kartothek/core/common_metadata.py b/kartothek/core/common_metadata.py
index 11c1da6d..b9e16f4f 100644
--- a/kartothek/core/common_metadata.py
+++ b/kartothek/core/common_metadata.py
@@ -721,6 +721,8 @@ def validate_shared_columns(schemas, ignore_pandas=False):
             obj = (field, col)
             if col in seen:
                 ref = seen[col]
+                if pa.types.is_null(ref[0].type) or pa.types.is_null(field.type):
+                    continue
                 if ref != obj:
                     raise ValueError(
                         'Found incompatible entries for column "{}"\n{}\n{}'.format(
diff --git a/tests/core/test_common_metadata.py b/tests/core/test_common_metadata.py
index 8825e791..ac2520e0 100644
--- a/tests/core/test_common_metadata.py
+++ b/tests/core/test_common_metadata.py
@@ -251,6 +251,21 @@ def test_validate_shared_columns_same(df_all_types):
     )
 
 
+def test_validate_shared_columns_null_value(df_all_types):
+    schema1 = make_meta(df_all_types, origin="1")
+    schema2 = make_meta(df_all_types.drop(0), origin="2")
+    schema3 = make_meta(df_all_types, origin="3").remove_metadata()
+    validate_shared_columns([])
+    validate_shared_columns([schema1])
+    validate_shared_columns([schema1, schema2])
+    with pytest.raises(ValueError):
+        validate_shared_columns([schema1, schema2, schema3])
+    validate_shared_columns([schema1, schema2, schema3], ignore_pandas=True)
+    validate_shared_columns(
+        [schema1.remove_metadata(), schema2.remove_metadata(), schema3]
+    )
+
+
 def test_validate_shared_columns_no_share(df_all_types):
     schema1 = make_meta(df_all_types.loc[:, df_all_types.columns[0:2]], origin="1")
     schema2 = make_meta(df_all_types.loc[:, df_all_types.columns[2:4]], origin="2")