diff --git a/ui/litellm-dashboard/src/components/templates/keyEditFieldNormalizers.test.ts b/ui/litellm-dashboard/src/components/templates/keyEditFieldNormalizers.test.ts
index 9ae0cbee589..9223cc6dbc8 100644
--- a/ui/litellm-dashboard/src/components/templates/keyEditFieldNormalizers.test.ts
+++ b/ui/litellm-dashboard/src/components/templates/keyEditFieldNormalizers.test.ts
@@ -19,6 +19,14 @@ describe("moveTagsOutOfMetadataJson", () => {
     });
   });
 
+  it("trims whitespace and drops blank entries the same way the Tags control does", () => {
+    expect(moveTagsOutOfMetadataJson('{"tags": [" a ", "a", "   ", "", " ui-tag"]}', ["ui-tag"])).toEqual({
+      metadata: "{}",
+      tags: ["ui-tag", "a"],
+      movedTags: ["a"],
+    });
+  });
+
   it("strips an empty tags array while moving nothing", () => {
     expect(moveTagsOutOfMetadataJson('{"tags": []}', undefined)).toEqual({
       metadata: "{}",
diff --git a/ui/litellm-dashboard/src/components/templates/keyEditFieldNormalizers.ts b/ui/litellm-dashboard/src/components/templates/keyEditFieldNormalizers.ts
index 208b7c033ac..1cfd1ae35f7 100644
--- a/ui/litellm-dashboard/src/components/templates/keyEditFieldNormalizers.ts
+++ b/ui/litellm-dashboard/src/components/templates/keyEditFieldNormalizers.ts
@@ -60,10 +60,10 @@ export const moveTagsOutOfMetadataJson = (
   const { tags: metadataTags, ...rest } = parsed;
   if (!Array.isArray(metadataTags)) return null;
   const existing = currentTags ?? [];
-  const movedTags = metadataTags.filter(
-    (tag: unknown, index: number): tag is string =>
-      typeof tag === "string" && !existing.includes(tag) && metadataTags.indexOf(tag) === index,
-  );
+  const movedTags = metadataTags
+    .filter((tag: unknown): tag is string => typeof tag === "string")
+    .map((tag) => tag.trim())
+    .filter((tag, index, all) => tag.length > 0 && !existing.includes(tag) && all.indexOf(tag) === index);
   return { metadata: JSON.stringify(rest, null, 2), tags: [...existing, ...movedTags], movedTags };
 };