diff --git a/internal/chain/engine.go b/internal/chain/engine.go
index 75abf36ecd..c601019dae 100644
--- a/internal/chain/engine.go
+++ b/internal/chain/engine.go
@@ -124,6 +124,13 @@ func (e *engineImpl) VerifyShardState(
 	if len(headerShardStateBytes) == 0 {
 		return nil
 	}
+	// Only scheduled epoch-ending blocks may carry shard state.
+	// A non-last block with non-empty shard-state bytes would be accepted by
+	// SuperCommitteeForNextEpoch (which returns shard.State{} for non-last blocks),
+	// causing the chain to persist an empty next-epoch committee and halt consensus.
+	if bc.Config().IsShardStateValidation(header.Epoch()) && !shard.Schedule.IsLastBlock(header.Number().Uint64()) {
+		return errors.New("[VerifyShardState] non-epoch-ending block must not carry shard state")
+	}
 	shardState, err := bc.SuperCommitteeForNextEpoch(beacon, header, true)
 	if err != nil {
 		return err
diff --git a/internal/params/config.go b/internal/params/config.go
index b98f43b834..b6a3a89c39 100644
--- a/internal/params/config.go
+++ b/internal/params/config.go
@@ -391,6 +391,7 @@ var (
 		EIP3860Epoch:                          EpochTBD,
 		PragueEpoch:                           EpochTBD,
 		EIP8024Epoch:                          EpochTBD,
+		ShardStateValidationEpoch:             EpochTBD,
 	}
 
 	// AllProtocolChanges ...
@@ -453,6 +454,7 @@ var (
 		big.NewInt(0),                      // TimestampValidationEpoch
 		big.NewInt(0),                      // PragueEpoch
 		big.NewInt(0),                      // EIP8024Epoch
+		EpochTBD,                           // ShardStateValidationEpoch
 	}
 
 	// TestChainConfig ...
@@ -515,6 +517,7 @@ var (
 		big.NewInt(0),        // TimestampValidationEpoch
 		big.NewInt(0),        // PragueEpoch
 		big.NewInt(0),        // EIP8024Epoch
+		EpochTBD,             // ShardStateValidationEpoch
 	}
 
 	// TestRules ...
@@ -726,6 +729,9 @@ type ChainConfig struct {
 	PragueEpoch *big.Int `json:"prague-epoch,omitempty"`
 	// EIP8024Epoch is the first epoch to support EIP-8024 (DUPN, SWAPN, EXCHANGE opcodes)
 	EIP8024Epoch *big.Int `json:"eip8024-epoch,omitempty"`
+	// ShardStateValidationEpoch is the first epoch to enforce that only scheduled
+	// epoch-ending blocks may carry shard state bytes in their header
+	ShardStateValidationEpoch *big.Int `json:"shard-state-validation-epoch,omitempty"`
 }
 
 // String implements the fmt.Stringer interface.
@@ -1012,6 +1018,11 @@ func (c *ChainConfig) IsEIP8024(epoch *big.Int) bool {
 	return isForked(c.EIP8024Epoch, epoch)
 }
 
+// IsShardStateValidation returns true when non-epoch-ending blocks are rejected if they carry shard state bytes
+func (c *ChainConfig) IsShardStateValidation(epoch *big.Int) bool {
+	return isForked(c.ShardStateValidationEpoch, epoch)
+}
+
 // IsChainIdFix returns whether epoch is either equal to the ChainId Fix fork epoch or greater.
 func (c *ChainConfig) IsChainIdFix(epoch *big.Int) bool {
 	return isForked(c.ChainIdFixEpoch, epoch)