diff --git a/Lib/test/test_zoneinfo/test_zoneinfo.py b/Lib/test/test_zoneinfo/test_zoneinfo.py
index 8414721555731e..8c6ce991d30b40 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_zoneinfo/test_zoneinfo.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_zoneinfo/test_zoneinfo.py
@@ -235,6 +235,7 @@ def test_bad_keys_paths(self):
             "../zoneinfo/America/Los_Angeles",  # Traverses above TZPATH
             "America/../America/Los_Angeles",  # Not normalized
             "America/./Los_Angeles",
+            "",
         ]
 
         for bad_key in bad_keys:
diff --git a/Lib/zoneinfo/_tzpath.py b/Lib/zoneinfo/_tzpath.py
index 5db17bea045d8c..990a5c8b6a9372 100644
--- a/Lib/zoneinfo/_tzpath.py
+++ b/Lib/zoneinfo/_tzpath.py
@@ -83,6 +83,11 @@ def find_tzfile(key):
 
 
 def _validate_tzfile_path(path, _base=_TEST_PATH):
+    if not path:
+        raise ValueError(
+            "ZoneInfo key must not be an empty string"
+        )
+
     if os.path.isabs(path):
         raise ValueError(
             f"ZoneInfo keys may not be absolute paths, got: {path}"
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2025-03-09-01-09-12.gh-issue-114713.lkq9vZ.rst b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2025-03-09-01-09-12.gh-issue-114713.lkq9vZ.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000000..d30975a8a5115b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2025-03-09-01-09-12.gh-issue-114713.lkq9vZ.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Handle case of an empty string passed to :class:`zoneinfo.ZoneInfo`.