diff --git a/fairseq/models/__init__.py b/fairseq/models/__init__.py
index 2507e661e..812ef5cd5 100644
--- a/fairseq/models/__init__.py
+++ b/fairseq/models/__init__.py
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@ from .fairseq_model import (
     FairseqModel,  # noqa: F401
     FairseqMultiModel,  # noqa: F401
     FairseqLanguageModel,  # noqa: F401
+    FairseqEncoderModel,  # noqa: F401
 )
 
 from .composite_encoder import CompositeEncoder  # noqa: F401
diff --git a/fairseq/models/fairseq_model.py b/fairseq/models/fairseq_model.py
index e17c887ab..190eedabc 100644
--- a/fairseq/models/fairseq_model.py
+++ b/fairseq/models/fairseq_model.py
@@ -297,3 +297,43 @@ class FairseqLanguageModel(BaseFairseqModel):
     def remove_head(self):
         """Removes the head of the model (e.g. the softmax layer) to conserve space when it is not needed"""
         raise NotImplementedError()
+
+
+class FairseqEncoderModel(BaseFairseqModel):
+    """Base class for encoder-only models.
+
+    Args:
+        encoder (FairseqEncoder): the encoder
+    """
+
+    def __init__(self, encoder):
+        super().__init__()
+        self.encoder = encoder
+        assert isinstance(self.encoder, FairseqEncoder)
+
+    def forward(self, src_tokens, src_lengths, **kwargs):
+        """
+        Run the forward pass for a encoder-only model.
+
+        Feeds a batch of tokens through the encoder to generate logits.
+
+        Args:
+            src_tokens (LongTensor): input tokens of shape `(batch, src_len)`
+            src_lengths (LongTensor): source sentence lengths of shape `(batch)`
+
+        Returns:
+            the encoder's output, typically of shape `(batch, seq_len, vocab)`
+        """
+        return self.encoder(src_tokens, src_lengths)
+
+    def max_positions(self):
+        """Maximum length supported by the model."""
+        return self.encoder.max_positions()
+
+    @property
+    def supported_targets(self):
+        return {'future'}
+
+    def remove_head(self):
+        """Removes the head of the model (e.g. the softmax layer) to conserve space when it is not needed"""
+        raise NotImplementedError()