diff --git a/pyogrio/tests/test_geopandas_io.py b/pyogrio/tests/test_geopandas_io.py
index ae914b1c..ebf0319e 100644
--- a/pyogrio/tests/test_geopandas_io.py
+++ b/pyogrio/tests/test_geopandas_io.py
@@ -1157,10 +1157,7 @@ def test_write_dataframe_index(tmp_path, naturalearth_lowres, use_arrow):
 )
 @pytest.mark.requires_arrow_write_api
 def test_write_empty_dataframe(tmp_path, ext, columns, dtype, use_arrow):
-    expected = gp.GeoDataFrame(geometry=[], columns=columns, crs=4326)
-    for column in columns:
-        expected[column] = expected[column].astype(dtype)
-
+    expected = gp.GeoDataFrame(geometry=[], columns=columns, dtype=dtype, crs=4326)
     filename = tmp_path / f"test{ext}"
     write_dataframe(expected, filename, use_arrow=use_arrow)