diff --git a/src/mcp/server/lowlevel/server.py b/src/mcp/server/lowlevel/server.py
index efdf4b216e..02e08a22b3 100644
--- a/src/mcp/server/lowlevel/server.py
+++ b/src/mcp/server/lowlevel/server.py
@@ -575,6 +575,11 @@ def get_capabilities(
         handshake-era derivation applies unchanged.
         """
         notification_options = notification_options or NotificationOptions()
+        # Normalized here rather than only at the create_initialization_options()
+        # call site, so server/discover (which calls this directly with no
+        # experimental_capabilities argument) reports {} instead of None for the
+        # same unconfigured server.
+        experimental_capabilities = experimental_capabilities or {}
         prompts_capability = None
         resources_capability = None
         tools_capability = None
diff --git a/tests/server/lowlevel/test_server_discover.py b/tests/server/lowlevel/test_server_discover.py
index 23a29327ee..8298274bd8 100644
--- a/tests/server/lowlevel/test_server_discover.py
+++ b/tests/server/lowlevel/test_server_discover.py
@@ -180,6 +180,27 @@ async def list_prompts(
     assert after.capabilities.prompts is not None
 
 
+@pytest.mark.anyio
+async def test_experimental_capability_is_empty_dict_not_none_when_unset() -> None:
+    """SDK-defined: an unconfigured server's `experimental` capability is `{}`
+    on both discovery paths, matching `create_initialization_options()`.
+
+    `get_capabilities()` used to leave `experimental` at its own parameter
+    default (`None`) unless the caller normalized it first;
+    `create_initialization_options()` did that normalization, but
+    `server/discover` calls `get_capabilities()` directly and did not - so the
+    same unconfigured server reported `{}` via `initialize` and `None` via
+    `server/discover`. See https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/python-sdk/issues/3254
+    """
+    server = Server("cap-server")
+
+    legacy_capabilities = server.create_initialization_options().capabilities
+    discovered = await _discover(server)
+
+    assert legacy_capabilities.experimental == {}
+    assert discovered.capabilities.experimental == {}
+
+
 @pytest.mark.anyio
 async def test_discover_result_defaults_to_immediately_stale_private_cache() -> None:
     """SDK-defined: `DiscoverResult` is cacheable; the auto-derived handler