diff --git a/api/etcdserverpb/rpc.pb.go b/api/etcdserverpb/rpc.pb.go
index 3ca2b50d4..195c2148a 100644
--- a/api/etcdserverpb/rpc.pb.go
+++ b/api/etcdserverpb/rpc.pb.go
@@ -275,7 +275,8 @@ type ResponseHeader struct {
 	ClusterId uint64 `protobuf:"varint,1,opt,name=cluster_id,json=clusterId,proto3" json:"cluster_id,omitempty"`
 	// member_id is the ID of the member which sent the response.
 	MemberId uint64 `protobuf:"varint,2,opt,name=member_id,json=memberId,proto3" json:"member_id,omitempty"`
-	// revision is the key-value store revision when the request was applied.
+	// revision is the key-value store revision when the request was applied, and it's
+	// unset (so 0) in case of calls not interacting with key-value store.
 	// For watch progress responses, the header.revision indicates progress. All future events
 	// received in this stream are guaranteed to have a higher revision number than the
 	// header.revision number.
diff --git a/api/etcdserverpb/rpc.proto b/api/etcdserverpb/rpc.proto
index 9d60c0b9e..a9dc1889a 100644
--- a/api/etcdserverpb/rpc.proto
+++ b/api/etcdserverpb/rpc.proto
@@ -395,7 +395,8 @@ message ResponseHeader {
   uint64 cluster_id = 1;
   // member_id is the ID of the member which sent the response.
   uint64 member_id = 2;
-  // revision is the key-value store revision when the request was applied.
+  // revision is the key-value store revision when the request was applied, and it's
+  // unset (so 0) in case of calls not interacting with key-value store.
   // For watch progress responses, the header.revision indicates progress. All future events
   // received in this stream are guaranteed to have a higher revision number than the
   // header.revision number.
diff --git a/etcdctl/ctlv3/command/printer_fields.go b/etcdctl/ctlv3/command/printer_fields.go
index 634ea5a8b..4f5cd2a92 100644
--- a/etcdctl/ctlv3/command/printer_fields.go
+++ b/etcdctl/ctlv3/command/printer_fields.go
@@ -36,7 +36,12 @@ func (p *fieldsPrinter) kv(pfx string, kv *spb.KeyValue) {
 func (p *fieldsPrinter) hdr(h *pb.ResponseHeader) {
 	fmt.Println(`"ClusterID" :`, h.ClusterId)
 	fmt.Println(`"MemberID" :`, h.MemberId)
-	fmt.Println(`"Revision" :`, h.Revision)
+	// Revision only makes sense for k/v responses. For other kinds of
+	// responses, i.e. MemberList, usually the revision isn't populated
+	// at all; so it would be better to hide this field in these cases.
+	if h.Revision > 0 {
+		fmt.Println(`"Revision" :`, h.Revision)
+	}
 	fmt.Println(`"RaftTerm" :`, h.RaftTerm)
 }