diff --git a/vllm/model_executor/models/clip.py b/vllm/model_executor/models/clip.py
index 70f1522ae2524..078928f281c26 100644
--- a/vllm/model_executor/models/clip.py
+++ b/vllm/model_executor/models/clip.py
@@ -355,6 +355,19 @@ def __init__(self,
             quant_config=quant_config,
             num_hidden_layers_override=num_hidden_layers_override)
 
+        if len(self.encoder.layers) > config.num_hidden_layers:
+            raise ValueError(
+                f"The original encoder only has {config.num_hidden_layers} "
+                f"layers, but you requested {len(self.encoder.layers)} layers."
+            )
+        elif len(self.encoder.layers) == config.num_hidden_layers:
+            self.post_layernorm = nn.LayerNorm(embed_dim,
+                                               eps=config.layer_norm_eps)
+        else:
+            # post_layernorm is unused when we extract intermediate features
+            # In this case, we can skip it to conserve memory
+            self.post_layernorm = None
+
     def forward(
         self,
         pixel_values: torch.Tensor,
@@ -364,7 +377,10 @@ def forward(
         hidden_states = self.pre_layrnorm(hidden_states)
         hidden_states = self.encoder(inputs_embeds=hidden_states)
 
-        return hidden_states
+        if self.post_layernorm is None:
+            return hidden_states
+
+        return self.post_layernorm(hidden_states)
 
 
 class CLIPVisionModel(nn.Module):
@@ -386,9 +402,12 @@ def __init__(self,
             quant_config=quant_config,
             num_hidden_layers_override=num_hidden_layers_override)
 
-    def forward(self, pixel_values: Optional[torch.Tensor] = None):
+    @property
+    def _require_post_layernorm(self) -> bool:
+        return self.vision_model.post_layernorm is not None
 
-        return self.vision_model(pixel_values=pixel_values)
+    def forward(self, pixel_values: torch.Tensor) -> torch.Tensor:
+        return self.vision_model(pixel_values)
 
     @property
     def device(self):
@@ -408,8 +427,10 @@ def load_weights(self, weights: Iterable[Tuple[str, torch.Tensor]]):
 
         for name, loaded_weight in weights:
             # post_layernorm is not needed in CLIPVisionModel
-            if "vision_model.post_layernorm" in name:
+            if ("vision_model.post_layernorm" in name
+                    and not self._require_post_layernorm):
                 continue
+
             # omit layers when num_hidden_layers_override is set
             if "vision_model.encoder.layers." in name:
                 layer_idx = int(name.split(".")[3])
diff --git a/vllm/model_executor/models/siglip.py b/vllm/model_executor/models/siglip.py
index 13d09e4cd4c23..f7976eba7420b 100644
--- a/vllm/model_executor/models/siglip.py
+++ b/vllm/model_executor/models/siglip.py
@@ -443,27 +443,26 @@ def __init__(
         self.config = config
         embed_dim = config.hidden_size
 
-        if (num_hidden_layers_override is None
-                or num_hidden_layers_override == config.num_hidden_layers):
-            self.need_post_layernorm = True
-        elif num_hidden_layers_override > config.num_hidden_layers:
-            raise ValueError(
-                "num_hidden_layers_override cannot be greater than "
-                "num_hidden_layers")
-        else:
-            self.need_post_layernorm = False
-
         self.embeddings = SiglipVisionEmbeddings(config)
         self.encoder = SiglipEncoder(
             config,
             quant_config=quant_config,
             num_hidden_layers_override=num_hidden_layers_override,
         )
-        if self.need_post_layernorm:
+
+        if len(self.encoder.layers) > config.num_hidden_layers:
+            raise ValueError(
+                f"The original encoder only has {config.num_hidden_layers} "
+                f"layers, but you requested {len(self.encoder.layers)} layers."
+            )
+        elif len(self.encoder.layers) == config.num_hidden_layers:
             self.post_layernorm = nn.LayerNorm(embed_dim,
                                                eps=config.layer_norm_eps)
         else:
-            self.post_layernorm = nn.Identity()
+            # post_layernorm is unused when we extract intermediate features
+            # In this case, we can skip it to conserve memory
+            self.post_layernorm = None
+
         self.use_head = (True if not hasattr(config, "vision_use_head") else
                          config.vision_use_head)
         if self.use_head:
@@ -482,6 +481,9 @@ def forward(
 
         encoder_outputs = self.encoder(inputs_embeds=hidden_states)
 
+        if self.post_layernorm is None:
+            return encoder_outputs
+
         last_hidden_state = self.post_layernorm(encoder_outputs)
         # TODO: add this back when pooled_output is used in inference
         # if self.use_head:
@@ -512,8 +514,8 @@ def __init__(
         )
 
     @property
-    def need_post_layernorm(self):
-        return self.vision_model.need_post_layernorm
+    def _require_post_layernorm(self) -> bool:
+        return self.vision_model.post_layernorm is not None
 
     def get_input_embeddings(self) -> nn.Module:
         return self.vision_model.embeddings.patch_embedding
@@ -541,7 +543,7 @@ def load_weights(self, weights: Iterable[Tuple[str, torch.Tensor]]):
         for name, loaded_weight in weights:
             # post_layernorm is optional in SiglipVisionModel
             if ("vision_model.post_layernorm" in name
-                    and not self.need_post_layernorm):
+                    and not self._require_post_layernorm):
                 continue
 
             # omit layers when num_hidden_layers_override is set