diff --git a/pkg/clients/cloudwatch/input.go b/pkg/clients/cloudwatch/input.go
index 3b1cf8f50..100c27b10 100644
--- a/pkg/clients/cloudwatch/input.go
+++ b/pkg/clients/cloudwatch/input.go
@@ -67,12 +67,17 @@ func createGetMetricStatisticsInput(logger *slog.Logger, dimensions []model.Dime
 		ExtendedStatistics: extendedStatistics,
 	}
 
+	statisticsCliArg := ""
+	if len(statistics) > 0 {
+		statisticsCliArg = string(statistics[0])
+	}
+
 	logger.Debug("CLI helper - " +
 		"aws cloudwatch get-metric-statistics" +
 		" --metric-name " + metric.Name +
 		" --dimensions " + dimensionsToCliString(dimensions) +
 		" --namespace " + *namespace +
-		" --statistics " + string(statistics[0]) +
+		" --statistics " + statisticsCliArg +
 		" --period " + strconv.FormatInt(period, 10) +
 		" --start-time " + startTime.Format(time.RFC3339) +
 		" --end-time " + endTime.Format(time.RFC3339))
diff --git a/pkg/clients/cloudwatch/input_test.go b/pkg/clients/cloudwatch/input_test.go
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..932e582e0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkg/clients/cloudwatch/input_test.go
@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+// Copyright The Prometheus Authors
+// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+// You may obtain a copy of the License at
+//
+// http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+//
+// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+// limitations under the License.
+package cloudwatch
+
+import (
+	"testing"
+
+	"github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/aws"
+	"github.com/prometheus/common/promslog"
+	"github.com/stretchr/testify/require"
+
+	"github.com/prometheus-community/yet-another-cloudwatch-exporter/pkg/model"
+)
+
+func TestCreateGetMetricStatisticsInput_OnlyExtendedStatistics(t *testing.T) {
+	// A metric configured with only percentile (extended) statistics, e.g. p50/p90/p99,
+	// leaves the classic `statistics` slice empty. createGetMetricStatisticsInput must
+	// not panic while building its debug CLI helper string in that case.
+	logger := promslog.NewNopLogger()
+	metric := &model.MetricConfig{
+		Name:       "IngestionToInvocationStartLatency",
+		Statistics: []string{"p50", "p90", "p99"},
+		Period:     60,
+		Length:     120,
+		Delay:      300,
+	}
+
+	require.NotPanics(t, func() {
+		output := createGetMetricStatisticsInput(logger, nil, aws.String("AWS/Events"), metric)
+		require.Empty(t, output.Statistics)
+		require.ElementsMatch(t, []string{"p50", "p90", "p99"}, output.ExtendedStatistics)
+	})
+}