diff --git a/django/core/management/commands/makemigrations.py b/django/core/management/commands/makemigrations.py
index 38ed9db473..8893e4fad1 100644
--- a/django/core/management/commands/makemigrations.py
+++ b/django/core/management/commands/makemigrations.py
@@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ class Command(BaseCommand):
 
         # Load the current graph state. Pass in None for the connection so
         # the loader doesn't try to resolve replaced migrations from DB.
-        loader = MigrationLoader(None)
+        loader = MigrationLoader(None, ignore_no_migrations=True)
 
         # Before anything else, see if there's conflicting apps and drop out
         # hard if there are any and they don't want to merge
diff --git a/django/db/migrations/loader.py b/django/db/migrations/loader.py
index 0d961c2b69..26047b3a85 100644
--- a/django/db/migrations/loader.py
+++ b/django/db/migrations/loader.py
@@ -39,10 +39,11 @@ class MigrationLoader(object):
     in memory.
     """
 
-    def __init__(self, connection, load=True):
+    def __init__(self, connection, load=True, ignore_no_migrations=False):
         self.connection = connection
         self.disk_migrations = None
         self.applied_migrations = None
+        self.ignore_no_migrations = ignore_no_migrations
         if load:
             self.build_graph()
 
@@ -156,7 +157,10 @@ class MigrationLoader(object):
                 else:
                     return list(self.graph.root_nodes(key[0]))[-1]
             except IndexError:
-                raise ValueError("Dependency on app with no migrations: %s" % key[0])
+                if self.ignore_no_migrations:
+                    return None
+                else:
+                    raise ValueError("Dependency on app with no migrations: %s" % key[0])
         raise ValueError("Dependency on unknown app: %s" % key[0])
 
     def build_graph(self):