diff --git a/pkg/engine/lifeycletest/pulumi_test.go b/pkg/engine/lifeycletest/pulumi_test.go
index 9eabcbc6f..ed13a1858 100644
--- a/pkg/engine/lifeycletest/pulumi_test.go
+++ b/pkg/engine/lifeycletest/pulumi_test.go
@@ -3131,7 +3131,6 @@ func TestExpectedUnneededDelete(t *testing.T) {
 	assert.Nil(t, res)
 
 	// Now run again with the plan set but the snapshot that resA is already deleted
-	createResource = true
 	p.Options.Plan = ClonePlan(t, plan)
 	snap, res = TestOp(Update).Run(project, p.GetTarget(t, snap), p.Options, false, p.BackendClient, nil)
 	assert.NotNil(t, snap)
diff --git a/pkg/resource/deploy/deployment_executor.go b/pkg/resource/deploy/deployment_executor.go
index b5fe4ba72..110147fb8 100644
--- a/pkg/resource/deploy/deployment_executor.go
+++ b/pkg/resource/deploy/deployment_executor.go
@@ -268,10 +268,26 @@ func (ex *deploymentExecutor) Execute(callerCtx context.Context, opts Options, p
 	}
 
 	// Check that we did operations for everything expected in the plan. We mutate ResourcePlan.Ops as we run
-	// so by the time we get here everything in the map should have an empty ops list
+	// so by the time we get here everything in the map should have an empty ops list (except for unneeded deletes)
 	if ex.deployment.plan != nil {
 		for urn, resourcePlan := range ex.deployment.plan.ResourcePlans {
 			if len(resourcePlan.Ops) != 0 {
+				if len(resourcePlan.Ops) == 1 && resourcePlan.Ops[0] == OpDelete {
+					// We haven't done a delete for this resource check if it was in the snapshot, if it's already gone this wasn't done because it wasn't needed
+					found := false
+					for i := range ex.deployment.prev.Resources {
+						if ex.deployment.prev.Resources[i].URN == urn {
+							found = true
+							break
+						}
+					}
+
+					// Didn't find the resource in the old snapshot so this was just an unneeded delete
+					if !found {
+						continue
+					}
+				}
+
 				err := fmt.Errorf("Expected resource operations for %v but none were seen.", urn)
 				logging.V(4).Infof("deploymentExecutor.Execute(...): error handling event: %v", err)
 				ex.reportError(urn, err)