diff --git a/docs/conf.py b/docs/conf.py
index 276d85a52b..d36a231539 100644
--- a/docs/conf.py
+++ b/docs/conf.py
@@ -500,5 +500,7 @@ def setup(app):
     r'https://doi\.org/10\.31526/.*',
     # https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/x DOI URLs will periodically generate 500 Server Error
     r'https://doi\.org/10\.1051/epjconf/.*',
+    # tags for a release won't exist until it is made, but the release notes need to reference them
+    r' https://github.com/scikit-hep/pyhf/releases/tag/.*',
 ]
 linkcheck_retries = 50