diff --git a/src/traces/bar/layout_defaults.js b/src/traces/bar/layout_defaults.js
index 1f688164dd0..528f5871be1 100644
--- a/src/traces/bar/layout_defaults.js
+++ b/src/traces/bar/layout_defaults.js
@@ -24,6 +24,8 @@ module.exports = function(layoutIn, layoutOut, fullData) {
     var gappedAnyway = false;
     var usedSubplots = {};
 
+    var mode = coerce('barmode');
+
     for(var i = 0; i < fullData.length; i++) {
         var trace = fullData[i];
         if(Registry.traceIs(trace, 'bar') && trace.visible) hasBars = true;
@@ -31,7 +33,7 @@ module.exports = function(layoutIn, layoutOut, fullData) {
 
         // if we have at least 2 grouped bar traces on the same subplot,
         // we should default to a gap anyway, even if the data is histograms
-        if(layoutIn.barmode !== 'overlay' && layoutIn.barmode !== 'stack') {
+        if(mode === 'group') {
             var subploti = trace.xaxis + trace.yaxis;
             if(usedSubplots[subploti]) gappedAnyway = true;
             usedSubplots[subploti] = true;
@@ -44,9 +46,11 @@ module.exports = function(layoutIn, layoutOut, fullData) {
         }
     }
 
-    if(!hasBars) return;
+    if(!hasBars) {
+        delete layoutOut.barmode;
+        return;
+    }
 
-    var mode = coerce('barmode');
     if(mode !== 'overlay') coerce('barnorm');
 
     coerce('bargap', (shouldBeGapless && !gappedAnyway) ? 0 : 0.2);
diff --git a/test/image/baselines/histogram_barmode_relative.png b/test/image/baselines/histogram_barmode_relative.png
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..34c8b61bbaf
Binary files /dev/null and b/test/image/baselines/histogram_barmode_relative.png differ
diff --git a/test/image/mocks/histogram_barmode_relative.json b/test/image/mocks/histogram_barmode_relative.json
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..7437af5f8e0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/image/mocks/histogram_barmode_relative.json
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+{
+  "data": [{
+    "type": "histogram",
+    "x": [9, 9, 3, 2, 5, 1, 3, 0, 6, 8, 5, 7, 2, 9, 9, 8, 5, 4, 1, 9, 2, 8, 0, 7, 2, 3, 5, 0, 3, 8, 2, 1, 7, 7, 7, 3, 9, 7, 8, 1, 7, 9, 4, 6, 2, 4, 2, 9, 3, 1, 5, 1, 6, 7, 6, 1, 6, 8, 6, 7, 8, 3, 7, 3, 1, 0, 2, 6, 1, 2, 7, 2, 9, 6, 2, 8, 0, 0, 9, 8, 5, 5, 8, 3, 5, 7, 7, 8, 3, 9, 3, 1, 5, 3, 5, 0, 8, 9, 4, 3]
+  }, {
+    "type": "histogram",
+    "x": [6, 7, 8, 0, 8, 1, 5, 4, 4, 3, 4, 7, 5, 3, 9, 5, 2, 5, 5, 4, 3, 5, 2, 6, 3, 9, 8, 5, 3, 8, 7, 2, 2, 7, 3, 7, 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 4, 9, 3, 5, 4, 1, 1, 2, 0, 2, 8, 1, 0, 3, 1, 2, 3, 5, 3, 8, 6, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 8, 6, 0, 8, 6, 8, 0, 9, 4, 4, 0, 7, 7, 9, 2, 8, 0, 9, 0, 5, 7, 2, 9, 6, 5, 0, 0, 4, 6, 0, 9, 8]
+  }],
+  "layout": {
+    "width": 600,
+    "barmode": "relative"
+  }
+}
diff --git a/test/jasmine/tests/bar_test.js b/test/jasmine/tests/bar_test.js
index 5a0934734be..eef374418f8 100644
--- a/test/jasmine/tests/bar_test.js
+++ b/test/jasmine/tests/bar_test.js
@@ -226,6 +226,20 @@ describe('Bar.supplyDefaults', function() {
         expect(gd._fullData[0].alignmentgroup).toBe(undefined, 'alignementgroup');
         expect(gd._fullData[0].offsetgroup).toBe(undefined, 'offsetgroup');
     });
+
+    it('should have a barmode only if it contains bars', function() {
+        var gd = {
+            data: [{type: 'histogram', y: [1], visible: false}],
+            layout: {}
+        };
+
+        supplyAllDefaults(gd);
+        expect(gd._fullLayout.barmode).toBe(undefined, '`barmode` should be undefined');
+
+        gd.data[0].visible = true;
+        supplyAllDefaults(gd);
+        expect(gd._fullLayout.barmode).toBe('group', '`barmode` should be set to its default ');
+    });
 });
 
 describe('bar calc / crossTraceCalc (formerly known as setPositions)', function() {