diff --git a/onnxruntime/python/tools/transformers/convert_generation.py b/onnxruntime/python/tools/transformers/convert_generation.py
index a106d906d0..5e2a27d7fa 100644
--- a/onnxruntime/python/tools/transformers/convert_generation.py
+++ b/onnxruntime/python/tools/transformers/convert_generation.py
@@ -1850,7 +1850,7 @@ def test_torch_performance(
             num_return_sequences=args.num_return_sequences,
             length_penalty=args.length_penalty,
             repetition_penalty=args.repetition_penalty,
-            bad_words_ids=bad_words_ids,
+            bad_words_ids=bad_words_ids if bad_words_ids else None,
             return_dict_in_generate=True,
             output_scores=args.output_sequences_scores or args.output_token_scores,
         )