diff --git a/src/transformers/models/gemma4/modeling_gemma4.py b/src/transformers/models/gemma4/modeling_gemma4.py
index f690c0425c8c..9d5b3ce1ea77 100644
--- a/src/transformers/models/gemma4/modeling_gemma4.py
+++ b/src/transformers/models/gemma4/modeling_gemma4.py
@@ -1592,6 +1592,11 @@ def forward(
                 "sliding_attention": create_sliding_window_causal_mask(**mask_kwargs),
             }
 
+        # Ensure a cache exists for KV sharing between layers, even when use_cache=False.
+        # This must happen after mask creation to avoid affecting causal mask computation.
+        if past_key_values is None:
+            past_key_values = DynamicCache(config=self.config)
+
         # embed positions
         hidden_states = inputs_embeds
         position_embeddings = {}
@@ -1616,7 +1621,7 @@ def forward(
 
         return BaseModelOutputWithPast(
             last_hidden_state=hidden_states,
-            past_key_values=past_key_values,
+            past_key_values=past_key_values if use_cache else None,
         )
 
     def get_per_layer_inputs(self, input_ids: torch.Tensor | None, inputs_embeds: torch.Tensor | None) -> torch.Tensor:
diff --git a/src/transformers/models/gemma4/modular_gemma4.py b/src/transformers/models/gemma4/modular_gemma4.py
index a97273802213..085ad8dad2b1 100644
--- a/src/transformers/models/gemma4/modular_gemma4.py
+++ b/src/transformers/models/gemma4/modular_gemma4.py
@@ -1361,6 +1361,11 @@ def forward(
                 "sliding_attention": create_sliding_window_causal_mask(**mask_kwargs),
             }
 
+        # Ensure a cache exists for KV sharing between layers, even when use_cache=False.
+        # This must happen after mask creation to avoid affecting causal mask computation.
+        if past_key_values is None:
+            past_key_values = DynamicCache(config=self.config)
+
         # embed positions
         hidden_states = inputs_embeds
         position_embeddings = {}
@@ -1385,7 +1390,7 @@ def forward(
 
         return BaseModelOutputWithPast(
             last_hidden_state=hidden_states,
-            past_key_values=past_key_values,
+            past_key_values=past_key_values if use_cache else None,
         )
 
 
diff --git a/tests/models/gemma4/test_modeling_gemma4.py b/tests/models/gemma4/test_modeling_gemma4.py
index c63e9ba20165..42f941b14418 100644
--- a/tests/models/gemma4/test_modeling_gemma4.py
+++ b/tests/models/gemma4/test_modeling_gemma4.py
@@ -114,6 +114,27 @@ def test_model_rope_scaling_from_config(self):
     def test_generate_from_random_inputs_embeds(self):
         pass
 
+    def test_use_cache_false_with_kv_sharing(self):
+        """Regression test: use_cache=False must produce the same logits as use_cache=True.
+
+        Gemma4 uses KV sharing (num_kv_shared_layers) where later layers reuse K/V from earlier
+        layers via the cache object. When use_cache=False the cache was not created, breaking the
+        sharing mechanism and causing receiver layers to use keys as values (garbage logits).
+        See https://github.com/huggingface/transformers/issues/45242
+        """
+        config = self.model_tester.get_config()
+        config.attention_k_eq_v = True
+        config.num_global_key_value_heads = config.num_key_value_heads
+        model = Gemma4ForCausalLM(config).to(torch_device).eval()
+        input_ids = ids_tensor([1, 16], config.vocab_size).to(torch_device)
+
+        with torch.no_grad():
+            out_cached = model(input_ids, use_cache=True)
+            out_uncached = model(input_ids, use_cache=False)
+
+        torch.testing.assert_close(out_cached.logits, out_uncached.logits, atol=1e-4, rtol=1e-4)
+        self.assertIsNone(out_uncached.past_key_values, "past_key_values should be None when use_cache=False")
+
     @unittest.skip(
         "Flaky on CI, but not locally on Mac. If model is set to fp32 instead of bf16, not flaky anymore."
         "TODO Cyril: investigate where the loss of precision between bf16 and fp32 comes from."