diff --git a/processing/src/main/java/org/apache/druid/segment/join/table/RowBasedIndexBuilder.java b/processing/src/main/java/org/apache/druid/segment/join/table/RowBasedIndexBuilder.java
index 5574f607e83d..732039befc41 100644
--- a/processing/src/main/java/org/apache/druid/segment/join/table/RowBasedIndexBuilder.java
+++ b/processing/src/main/java/org/apache/druid/segment/join/table/RowBasedIndexBuilder.java
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@
 import it.unimi.dsi.fastutil.longs.Long2ObjectMap;
 import it.unimi.dsi.fastutil.longs.Long2ObjectOpenHashMap;
 import it.unimi.dsi.fastutil.objects.ObjectIterator;
+import org.apache.druid.error.InvalidInput;
 import org.apache.druid.java.util.common.ISE;
 import org.apache.druid.segment.DimensionHandlerUtils;
 import org.apache.druid.segment.column.ColumnType;
@@ -62,6 +63,11 @@ public RowBasedIndexBuilder(ColumnType keyType)
   {
     this.keyType = keyType;
 
+    // Cannot build index on complex types, and non-primitive arrays
+    if (keyType.is(ValueType.COMPLEX) || keyType.isArray() && !keyType.isPrimitiveArray()) {
+      throw InvalidInput.exception("Cannot join when the join condition has column of type [%s]", keyType);
+    }
+
     if (keyType.is(ValueType.LONG)) {
       // We're specializing the type even though we don't specialize usage in this class, for two reasons:
       //  (1) It's still useful to reduce overall memory footprint.
diff --git a/sql/src/test/java/org/apache/druid/sql/calcite/CalciteNestedDataQueryTest.java b/sql/src/test/java/org/apache/druid/sql/calcite/CalciteNestedDataQueryTest.java
index e93a602296d3..eda86289d29d 100644
--- a/sql/src/test/java/org/apache/druid/sql/calcite/CalciteNestedDataQueryTest.java
+++ b/sql/src/test/java/org/apache/druid/sql/calcite/CalciteNestedDataQueryTest.java
@@ -32,6 +32,7 @@
 import org.apache.druid.data.input.impl.LongDimensionSchema;
 import org.apache.druid.data.input.impl.StringDimensionSchema;
 import org.apache.druid.data.input.impl.TimestampSpec;
+import org.apache.druid.error.DruidException;
 import org.apache.druid.error.DruidExceptionMatcher;
 import org.apache.druid.guice.DruidInjectorBuilder;
 import org.apache.druid.guice.NestedDataModule;
@@ -80,6 +81,7 @@
 import org.apache.druid.timeline.partition.LinearShardSpec;
 import org.hamcrest.CoreMatchers;
 import org.junit.internal.matchers.ThrowableMessageMatcher;
+import org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions;
 import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
 
 import java.util.Arrays;
@@ -5404,6 +5406,19 @@ public void testGroupByRootSingleTypeStringMixed1SparseNotNull()
     );
   }
 
+  @Test
+  public void testJoinOnNestedColumnThrows()
+  {
+    DruidException e = Assertions.assertThrows(DruidException.class, () -> {
+      testQuery(
+          "SELECT * FROM druid.nested a INNER JOIN druid.nested b ON a.nester = b.nester",
+          ImmutableList.of(),
+          ImmutableList.of()
+      );
+    });
+    Assertions.assertEquals("Cannot join when the join condition has column of type [COMPLEX<json>]", e.getMessage());
+  }
+
   @Test
   public void testScanStringNotNullCast()
   {