diff --git a/doc/whatsnew/fragments/8735.other b/doc/whatsnew/fragments/8735.other
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..8d8a3109f4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/whatsnew/fragments/8735.other
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+Fix a crash when a ``nonlocal`` is defined at module-level.
+
+Closes #8735
diff --git a/pylint/checkers/variables.py b/pylint/checkers/variables.py
index 2bd553fa11..5037b9229d 100644
--- a/pylint/checkers/variables.py
+++ b/pylint/checkers/variables.py
@@ -2913,7 +2913,7 @@ def _check_self_cls_assign(self, node: nodes.Assign) -> None:
                     elt.name for elt in target.elts if isinstance(elt, nodes.AssignName)
                 )
         scope = node.scope()
-        nonlocals_with_same_name = any(
+        nonlocals_with_same_name = node.scope().parent and any(
             child for child in scope.body if isinstance(child, nodes.Nonlocal)
         )
         if nonlocals_with_same_name:
diff --git a/tests/functional/n/nonlocal_without_binding.py b/tests/functional/n/nonlocal_without_binding.py
index 277c7f7ebd..ae8b60677d 100644
--- a/tests/functional/n/nonlocal_without_binding.py
+++ b/tests/functional/n/nonlocal_without_binding.py
@@ -69,3 +69,7 @@ def inner():
         myint += 1
 
     return inner()
+
+
+nonlocal APPLE  # [nonlocal-without-binding]
+APPLE = 42
diff --git a/tests/functional/n/nonlocal_without_binding.txt b/tests/functional/n/nonlocal_without_binding.txt
index 039d07b522..ab31524bcb 100644
--- a/tests/functional/n/nonlocal_without_binding.txt
+++ b/tests/functional/n/nonlocal_without_binding.txt
@@ -2,3 +2,4 @@ nonlocal-without-binding:29:8:29:18:func.other_func:nonlocal name b found withou
 nonlocal-without-binding:35:8:35:18:func.other_func2:nonlocal name c found without binding:HIGH
 nonlocal-without-binding:40:4:40:14:SomeClass:nonlocal name x found without binding:HIGH
 nonlocal-without-binding:43:8:43:26:SomeClass.func:nonlocal name some_attr found without binding:HIGH
+nonlocal-without-binding:74:0:74:14::nonlocal name APPLE found without binding:HIGH