diff --git a/pkg/provider/state.go b/pkg/provider/state.go
index 17e469ec..1a04842d 100644
--- a/pkg/provider/state.go
+++ b/pkg/provider/state.go
@@ -139,6 +139,13 @@ func (s States) EarliestTimestamp() (time.Time, error) {
 	if len(s) == 0 {
 		return time.Time{}, fmt.Errorf("cannot find earliest timestamp: no states provided")
 	}
+
+	// special case when there is exactly 1 state, return its timestamp even
+	// if it is nvd, because otherwise quality gates that pull only nvd deterministically fail.
+	if len(s) == 1 {
+		return s[0].Timestamp, nil
+	}
+
 	var earliest time.Time
 	for _, curState := range s {
 		// the NVD api is constantly down, so we don't want to consider it for the earliest timestamp
diff --git a/pkg/provider/state_test.go b/pkg/provider/state_test.go
index bf04fd32..7544860c 100644
--- a/pkg/provider/state_test.go
+++ b/pkg/provider/state_test.go
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ func Test_earliestTimestamp(t *testing.T) {
 		},
 		{
 			name: "single state, but it's nvd",
-			states: []provider.State{
+			states: []State{
 				{
 					Provider:  "nvd",
 					Timestamp: time.Date(2021, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, time.UTC),