diff --git a/core/vm/runtime/runtime_test.go b/core/vm/runtime/runtime_test.go
index 04abc5480e..0c6df9992c 100644
--- a/core/vm/runtime/runtime_test.go
+++ b/core/vm/runtime/runtime_test.go
@@ -17,9 +17,11 @@
 package runtime
 
 import (
+	"encoding/binary"
 	"fmt"
 	"math/big"
 	"os"
+	"strconv"
 	"strings"
 	"testing"
 
@@ -213,6 +215,41 @@ func BenchmarkEVM_CREATE2_1200(bench *testing.B) {
 	benchmarkEVM_Create(bench, "5b5862124f80600080f5600152600056")
 }
 
+func BenchmarkEVM_RETURN(b *testing.B) {
+	// returns a contract that returns a zero-byte slice of len size
+	returnContract := func(size uint64) []byte {
+		contract := []byte{
+			byte(vm.PUSH8), 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, // PUSH8 0xXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
+			byte(vm.PUSH0),  // PUSH0
+			byte(vm.RETURN), // RETURN
+		}
+		binary.BigEndian.PutUint64(contract[1:], size)
+		return contract
+	}
+
+	state, _ := state.New(types.EmptyRootHash, state.NewDatabase(rawdb.NewMemoryDatabase()), nil)
+	contractAddr := common.BytesToAddress([]byte("contract"))
+
+	for _, n := range []uint64{1_000, 10_000, 100_000, 1_000_000} {
+		b.Run(strconv.FormatUint(n, 10), func(b *testing.B) {
+			b.ReportAllocs()
+
+			contractCode := returnContract(n)
+			state.SetCode(contractAddr, contractCode)
+
+			for i := 0; i < b.N; i++ {
+				ret, _, err := Call(contractAddr, []byte{}, &Config{State: state})
+				if err != nil {
+					b.Fatal(err)
+				}
+				if uint64(len(ret)) != n {
+					b.Fatalf("expected return size %d, got %d", n, len(ret))
+				}
+			}
+		})
+	}
+}
+
 func fakeHeader(n uint64, parentHash common.Hash) *types.Header {
 	header := types.Header{
 		Coinbase:   common.HexToAddress("0x00000000000000000000000000000000deadbeef"),