diff --git a/doc/source/statuses.rst b/doc/source/statuses.rst
index 431913639a..0dd1fc3581 100644
--- a/doc/source/statuses.rst
+++ b/doc/source/statuses.rst
@@ -22,7 +22,8 @@ Images in Glance can be in one the following statuses:
 * ``queued``
 
   The image identifier has been reserved for an image in the Glance
-  registry. No image data has been uploaded to Glance.
+  registry. No image data has been uploaded to Glance and the image
+  size was not explicitly set to zero on creation.
 
 * ``saving``
 
@@ -34,7 +35,9 @@ Images in Glance can be in one the following statuses:
 
 * ``active``
 
-  Denotes an image that is fully available in Glance.
+  Denotes an image that is fully available in Glance. This occurs when
+  the image data is uploaded, or the image size is explicitly set to
+  zero on creation.
 
 * ``killed``
 
diff --git a/glance/api/v1/images.py b/glance/api/v1/images.py
index e295f42aa1..e5445c4350 100644
--- a/glance/api/v1/images.py
+++ b/glance/api/v1/images.py
@@ -272,8 +272,11 @@ class Controller(controller.BaseController):
         self._enforce(req, 'get_image')
         image_meta = self.get_active_image_meta_or_404(req, id)
 
-        image_iterator, size = self._get_from_store(image_meta['location'])
-        image_meta['size'] = size or image_meta['size']
+        if image_meta.get('size') == 0:
+            image_iterator = iter([])
+        else:
+            image_iterator, size = self._get_from_store(image_meta['location'])
+            image_meta['size'] = size or image_meta['size']
 
         del image_meta['location']
         return {
@@ -295,6 +298,10 @@ class Controller(controller.BaseController):
         :raises HTTPBadRequest if image metadata is not valid
         """
         location = self._external_source(image_meta, req)
+
+        image_meta['status'] = ('active' if image_meta.get('size') == 0
+                                else 'queued')
+
         if location:
             store = get_store_from_location(location)
             # check the store exists before we hit the registry, but we
@@ -309,8 +316,6 @@ class Controller(controller.BaseController):
             # to a non-zero value during upload
             image_meta['size'] = image_meta.get('size', 0)
 
-        image_meta['status'] = 'queued'
-
         try:
             image_meta = registry.add_image_metadata(req.context, image_meta)
             return image_meta