diff --git a/packages/react-email/src/components/tailwind/utils/css/make-inline-styles-for.spec.ts b/packages/react-email/src/components/tailwind/utils/css/make-inline-styles-for.spec.ts
index 9faffbe60f..af46b53034 100644
--- a/packages/react-email/src/components/tailwind/utils/css/make-inline-styles-for.spec.ts
+++ b/packages/react-email/src/components/tailwind/utils/css/make-inline-styles-for.spec.ts
@@ -41,11 +41,61 @@ describe('makeInlineStylesFor()', async () => {
       ),
     ).toMatchInlineSnapshot(`
       {
-        "backgroundColor": " #3490dc",
+        "backgroundColor": "#3490dc",
         "borderRadius": "0.25rem",
-        "color": " #fff",
+        "color": "#fff",
         "padding": "0.5rem 1rem",
       }
     `);
   });
+
+  it('strips Tailwind v4 variant-stacking var() refs with empty fallbacks', () => {
+    // Tailwind v4 compiles `tabular-nums` to a font-variant-numeric value
+    // where every optional variant slot is represented by an unresolved
+    // var(--tw-..., ) with an empty fallback. Email clients do not support
+    // CSS custom properties reliably, so these must collapse at inline time
+    // (per CSS spec, an empty fallback resolves to empty string).
+    const tailwindStyles = parse(`
+      .tabular-nums {
+        font-variant-numeric: var(--tw-ordinal,) var(--tw-slashed-zero,) var(--tw-numeric-figure,) tabular-nums var(--tw-numeric-fraction,);
+      }
+    `) as StyleSheet;
+
+    expect(
+      makeInlineStylesFor(
+        tailwindStyles.children.toArray(),
+        getCustomProperties(tailwindStyles),
+      ),
+    ).toMatchInlineSnapshot(`
+      {
+        "fontVariantNumeric": "tabular-nums",
+      }
+    `);
+  });
+
+  it('preserves user-authored empty-fallback var() refs (non --tw- prefix)', () => {
+    // The collapse is scoped to Tailwind's --tw-* variant-stacking idiom.
+    // A user-authored var(--my-color,) with an empty fallback must pass
+    // through unchanged even though it syntactically matches the idiom --
+    // the user opted into that semantic and the render target may define
+    // --my-color at a higher scope.
+    const userStyles = parse(`
+      .thing {
+        color: var(--my-color,);
+        background: var(--brand,) var(--tw-custom,);
+      }
+    `) as StyleSheet;
+
+    expect(
+      makeInlineStylesFor(
+        userStyles.children.toArray(),
+        getCustomProperties(userStyles),
+      ),
+    ).toMatchInlineSnapshot(`
+      {
+        "background": "var(--brand,)",
+        "color": "var(--my-color,)",
+      }
+    `);
+  });
 });
diff --git a/packages/react-email/src/components/tailwind/utils/css/make-inline-styles-for.ts b/packages/react-email/src/components/tailwind/utils/css/make-inline-styles-for.ts
index 0eef3c7b25..3daaa222f9 100644
--- a/packages/react-email/src/components/tailwind/utils/css/make-inline-styles-for.ts
+++ b/packages/react-email/src/components/tailwind/utils/css/make-inline-styles-for.ts
@@ -59,9 +59,26 @@ export function makeInlineStylesFor(
         if (declaration.property.startsWith('--')) {
           return;
         }
+        // Tailwind v4 emits variant-stacking idioms like
+        //   font-variant-numeric: var(--tw-ordinal,) var(--tw-slashed-zero,) tabular-nums var(--tw-numeric-fraction,)
+        // where each var() has an empty fallback so missing variants collapse to nothing.
+        // The walker above replaces var() calls with an initialValue when one is defined,
+        // but Tailwind deliberately leaves these variant vars undefined until used, so they
+        // stay in the output here and produce unresolvable custom properties in email HTML
+        // (no email client supports CSS custom properties reliably). Per the CSS spec
+        // (https://www.w3.org/TR/css-variables-1/#using-variables) an empty fallback means
+        // "use empty string if the variable is undefined", which is exactly what we want at
+        // inline-style time.
+        //
+        // Scoped to the `--tw-` prefix so any user-authored empty-fallback var() refs
+        // (even ones used inside tailwind utilities) are left untouched.
+        const rawValue = generate(declaration.value);
+        const cleanedValue = rawValue
+          .replace(/var\(\s*--tw-[\w-]+\s*,\s*\)/g, ' ')
+          .replace(/\s+/g, ' ')
+          .trim();
         styles[getReactProperty(declaration.property)] =
-          generate(declaration.value) +
-          (declaration.important ? '!important' : '');
+          cleanedValue + (declaration.important ? '!important' : '');
       },
     });
   }