diff --git a/algo/src/main/java/org/neo4j/graphalgo/similarity/CosineProc.java b/algo/src/main/java/org/neo4j/graphalgo/similarity/CosineProc.java
index d8d241758..e35aab544 100644
--- a/algo/src/main/java/org/neo4j/graphalgo/similarity/CosineProc.java
+++ b/algo/src/main/java/org/neo4j/graphalgo/similarity/CosineProc.java
@@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ public Stream<SimilaritySummaryResult> cosine(
         SimilarityComputer<WeightedInput> computer = similarityComputer(skipValue);
         Stream<SimilarityResult> stream = generateStream(configuration, inputs, similarityCutoff, topN, topK, computer);
 
-        boolean write = configuration.isWriteFlag(false) && similarityCutoff > 0.0;
+        boolean write = configuration.isWriteFlag(false) && (similarityCutoff > 0.0 || topK > 0);
         return writeAndAggregateResults(configuration, stream, inputs.length, write, "SIMILAR");
     }