diff --git a/federationsender/queue/destinationqueue.go b/federationsender/queue/destinationqueue.go
index 12845061a..237e50829 100644
--- a/federationsender/queue/destinationqueue.go
+++ b/federationsender/queue/destinationqueue.go
@@ -170,6 +170,7 @@ func (oq *destinationQueue) wakeQueueIfNeeded() {
 // getPendingFromDatabase will look at the database and see if
 // there are any persisted events that haven't been sent to this
 // destination yet. If so, they will be queued up.
+// nolint:gocyclo
 func (oq *destinationQueue) getPendingFromDatabase() {
 	// Check to see if there's anything to do for this server
 	// in the database.
@@ -177,10 +178,27 @@ func (oq *destinationQueue) getPendingFromDatabase() {
 	ctx := context.Background()
 	oq.pendingMutex.Lock()
 	defer oq.pendingMutex.Unlock()
+
+	// Take a note of all of the PDUs and EDUs that we already
+	// have cached. We will index them based on the receipt,
+	// which ultimately just contains the index of the PDU/EDU
+	// in the database.
+	gotPDUs := map[string]struct{}{}
+	gotEDUs := map[string]struct{}{}
+	for _, pdu := range oq.pendingPDUs {
+		gotPDUs[pdu.receipt.String()] = struct{}{}
+	}
+	for _, edu := range oq.pendingEDUs {
+		gotEDUs[edu.receipt.String()] = struct{}{}
+	}
+
 	if pduCapacity := maxPDUsInMemory - len(oq.pendingPDUs); pduCapacity > 0 {
 		// We have room in memory for some PDUs - let's request no more than that.
 		if pdus, err := oq.db.GetPendingPDUs(ctx, oq.destination, pduCapacity); err == nil {
 			for receipt, pdu := range pdus {
+				if _, ok := gotPDUs[receipt.String()]; ok {
+					continue
+				}
 				oq.pendingPDUs = append(oq.pendingPDUs, &queuedPDU{receipt, pdu})
 				retrieved = true
 			}
@@ -192,6 +210,9 @@ func (oq *destinationQueue) getPendingFromDatabase() {
 		// We have room in memory for some EDUs - let's request no more than that.
 		if edus, err := oq.db.GetPendingEDUs(ctx, oq.destination, eduCapacity); err == nil {
 			for receipt, edu := range edus {
+				if _, ok := gotEDUs[receipt.String()]; ok {
+					continue
+				}
 				oq.pendingEDUs = append(oq.pendingEDUs, &queuedEDU{receipt, edu})
 				retrieved = true
 			}
diff --git a/federationsender/storage/shared/storage.go b/federationsender/storage/shared/storage.go
index f5921672d..fbf84c705 100644
--- a/federationsender/storage/shared/storage.go
+++ b/federationsender/storage/shared/storage.go
@@ -46,6 +46,10 @@ type Receipt struct {
 	nid int64
 }
 
+func (r *Receipt) String() string {
+	return fmt.Sprintf("%d", r.nid)
+}
+
 // UpdateRoom updates the joined hosts for a room and returns what the joined
 // hosts were before the update, or nil if this was a duplicate message.
 // This is called when we receive a message from kafka, so we pass in