Certain aspects of the present disclosure provide techniques for communicating a user equipment (UE)'s capabilities to a network entity, such as a base station. An example method that may be performed by a UE includes transmitting a first message to a network entity, the first message comprising a base identification and a delta flag, wherein the base identification identifies base capabilities of the UE, and wherein the delta flag indicates whether there is delta information to be shared by the UE, the delta information corresponding to changes to the base capabilities of the UE. The method further includes determining whether to transmit a third message to the network entity based on whether the UE receives a second message from the network entity, the second message comprising a full capability flag indicating whether the UE should send an indication of its full capabilities to the network entity.