A video coding mechanism includes receiving a bitstream comprising a current picture including a sub-picture coded according to inter-prediction. Coded blocks contain candidate motion vectors for a current block of the sub-picture. The coded blocks include a collocated block from a different picture. A candidate list of candidate motion vectors for the current block are derived by excluding collocated motion vectors from the candidate list when the collocated motion vectors are included in the collocated block, when the collocated motion vectors point outside of the sub-picture, and when a flag is set to indicate the sub-picture is treated as a picture. A current motion vector for the current block is determined from the candidate list of candidate motion vectors. The current block is decoded based on the current motion vector. The current block is forwarded for display as part of a decoded video sequence.