Certain aspects of the present disclosure provide techniques for reducing a quantity of antenna elements for uplink transmission. A method that may be performed by a user equipment (UE) includes determining a virtual power headroom (VPHR) associated with uplink transmission for each of a plurality of beams, selecting one or more beams of the plurality of beams for the uplink transmission based on the determination such that the VPHR associated with each of the one or more beams is at least equal to or greater than zero, and indicating a parameter associated with the one or more beams for selection of a beam to be used for the uplink transmission.