diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.6.0.rst b/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.6.0.rst
index ee5085fd9ad89..ab23e44bb30bb 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.6.0.rst
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.6.0.rst
@@ -188,7 +188,7 @@ Plotting
 
 Groupby/resample/rolling
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
--
+- Bug in :meth:`DataFrameGroupBy.sample` raises ``ValueError`` when the object is empty (:issue:`48459`)
 -
 
 Reshaping
diff --git a/pandas/core/groupby/groupby.py b/pandas/core/groupby/groupby.py
index 7cd6a93fea92d..649ea1cc7a755 100644
--- a/pandas/core/groupby/groupby.py
+++ b/pandas/core/groupby/groupby.py
@@ -4256,6 +4256,9 @@ def sample(
         2   blue  2
         0    red  0
         """  # noqa:E501
+        if self._selected_obj.empty:
+            # GH48459 prevent ValueError when object is empty
+            return self._selected_obj
         size = sample.process_sampling_size(n, frac, replace)
         if weights is not None:
             weights_arr = sample.preprocess_weights(
diff --git a/pandas/tests/groupby/test_sample.py b/pandas/tests/groupby/test_sample.py
index 9153fac0927c5..4dd474741740d 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/groupby/test_sample.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/groupby/test_sample.py
@@ -142,3 +142,13 @@ def test_groupby_sample_with_selections():
     result = df.groupby("a")[["b", "c"]].sample(n=None, frac=None)
     expected = DataFrame({"b": [1, 2], "c": [1, 2]}, index=result.index)
     tm.assert_frame_equal(result, expected)
+
+
+def test_groupby_sample_with_empty_inputs():
+    # GH48459
+    df = DataFrame({"a": [], "b": []})
+    groupby_df = df.groupby("a")
+
+    result = groupby_df.sample()
+    expected = df
+    tm.assert_frame_equal(result, expected)