diff --git a/CHANGES.md b/CHANGES.md
index b29958eaa..39d1f6e21 100644
--- a/CHANGES.md
+++ b/CHANGES.md
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@
 * Manually exclude non-truthy optional values from sqlalchemy serialization of Collections ([#508](https://github.com/stac-utils/stac-fastapi/pull/508))
 * Support `intersects` in GET requests ([#521](https://github.com/stac-utils/stac-fastapi/pull/521))
 * Deleting items that had repeated ids in other collections ([#520](https://github.com/stac-utils/stac-fastapi/pull/520))
+* 404 for missing collection on /items for sqlalchemy ([#528](https://github.com/stac-utils/stac-fastapi/pull/528))
 
 ### Deprecated
 
diff --git a/stac_fastapi/sqlalchemy/stac_fastapi/sqlalchemy/core.py b/stac_fastapi/sqlalchemy/stac_fastapi/sqlalchemy/core.py
index 68995d209..62289d2a0 100644
--- a/stac_fastapi/sqlalchemy/stac_fastapi/sqlalchemy/core.py
+++ b/stac_fastapi/sqlalchemy/stac_fastapi/sqlalchemy/core.py
@@ -110,6 +110,8 @@ def item_collection(
         """Read an item collection from the database."""
         base_url = str(kwargs["request"].base_url)
         with self.session.reader.context_session() as session:
+            # Look up the collection first to get a 404 if it doesn't exist
+            _ = self._lookup_id(collection_id, self.collection_table, session)
             query = (
                 session.query(self.item_table)
                 .join(self.collection_table)
diff --git a/stac_fastapi/sqlalchemy/tests/resources/test_item.py b/stac_fastapi/sqlalchemy/tests/resources/test_item.py
index b44aa9afc..5ecf51952 100644
--- a/stac_fastapi/sqlalchemy/tests/resources/test_item.py
+++ b/stac_fastapi/sqlalchemy/tests/resources/test_item.py
@@ -688,7 +688,7 @@ def test_item_search_get_query_extension(app_client, load_test_data):
 def test_get_missing_item_collection(app_client):
     """Test reading a collection which does not exist"""
     resp = app_client.get("/collections/invalid-collection/items")
-    assert resp.status_code == 200
+    assert resp.status_code == 404
 
 
 def test_pagination_item_collection(app_client, load_test_data):