diff --git a/core-it-suite/src/test/java/org/apache/maven/it/MavenITmng8311EmptyLocalRepositoryTest.java b/core-it-suite/src/test/java/org/apache/maven/it/MavenITmng8311EmptyLocalRepositoryTest.java
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..07b582ebf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/core-it-suite/src/test/java/org/apache/maven/it/MavenITmng8311EmptyLocalRepositoryTest.java
@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+/*
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+ * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+ * distributed with this work for additional information
+ * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+ * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+ * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+ * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+ * software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+ * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+ * KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+ * specific language governing permissions and limitations
+ * under the License.
+ */
+package org.apache.maven.it;
+
+import java.io.File;
+import java.nio.file.Path;
+
+import org.apache.maven.shared.verifier.Verifier;
+import org.apache.maven.shared.verifier.util.ResourceExtractor;
+import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
+
+/**
+ * This is a test set for <a href="https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/MNG-8311">MNG-8311</a>.
+ */
+class MavenITmng8311EmptyLocalRepositoryTest extends AbstractMavenIntegrationTestCase {
+
+    MavenITmng8311EmptyLocalRepositoryTest() {
+        super("[4.0.0-beta-5,)");
+    }
+
+    /**
+     *  Ensure that setting an empty {@code <localRepository>} in the settings.xml results the default local repository being used.
+     */
+    @Test
+    void testitemptyLocalRepository() throws Exception {
+        File testDir = ResourceExtractor.simpleExtractResources(getClass(), "/mng-8311-empty-local-repository");
+
+        Verifier verifier = newVerifier(new File(testDir, "empty-repository").getAbsolutePath());
+        verifier.addCliArguments("--settings", new File(testDir, "settings.xml").toString(), "-X", "validate");
+        verifier.execute();
+        Path expectedLocalRepository = Path.of(System.getProperty("user.home"), ".m2", "repository");
+        verifier.verifyTextInLog("Using local repository at " + expectedLocalRepository.normalize());
+    }
+}
diff --git a/core-it-suite/src/test/java/org/apache/maven/it/TestSuiteOrdering.java b/core-it-suite/src/test/java/org/apache/maven/it/TestSuiteOrdering.java
index b78e12433..e604cce75 100644
--- a/core-it-suite/src/test/java/org/apache/maven/it/TestSuiteOrdering.java
+++ b/core-it-suite/src/test/java/org/apache/maven/it/TestSuiteOrdering.java
@@ -120,6 +120,7 @@ public TestSuiteOrdering() {
          * the tests are to finishing. Newer tests are also more likely to fail, so this is
          * a fail fast technique as well.
          */
+        suite.addTestSuite(MavenITmng8311EmptyLocalRepositoryTest.class);
         suite.addTestSuite(MavenITmng8299CustomLifecycleTest.class);
         suite.addTestSuite(MavenITmng7982DependencyManagementTransitivityTest.class);
         suite.addTestSuite(MavenITmng8294ParentChecksTest.class);
diff --git a/core-it-suite/src/test/resources/mng-8311-empty-local-repository/empty-repository/pom.xml b/core-it-suite/src/test/resources/mng-8311-empty-local-repository/empty-repository/pom.xml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..162269349
--- /dev/null
+++ b/core-it-suite/src/test/resources/mng-8311-empty-local-repository/empty-repository/pom.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.1.0" root="true">
+  <groupId>org.apache.maven.its.mng8311</groupId>
+  <artifactId>empty-repo</artifactId>
+  <version>0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
+  <packaging>pom</packaging>
+</project>
diff --git a/core-it-suite/src/test/resources/mng-8311-empty-local-repository/settings.xml b/core-it-suite/src/test/resources/mng-8311-empty-local-repository/settings.xml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..16a75df88
--- /dev/null
+++ b/core-it-suite/src/test/resources/mng-8311-empty-local-repository/settings.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+<settings xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
+  xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/settings-1.0.0.xsd">
+  <localRepository/>
+  <interactiveMode/>
+  <offline/>
+  <pluginGroups/>
+  <servers/>
+  <mirrors/>
+  <proxies/>
+  <profiles/>
+  <activeProfiles/>
+</settings>
\ No newline at end of file