diff --git a/stub_uploader/metadata.py b/stub_uploader/metadata.py
index 723e0059..859dbf35 100644
--- a/stub_uploader/metadata.py
+++ b/stub_uploader/metadata.py
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 import graphlib
 import os
 import re
-from collections.abc import Iterator
+from collections.abc import Iterator, Iterable
 from typing import Any, Optional
 
 import requests
@@ -217,7 +217,9 @@ def verify_external_req(
         )
 
 
-def sort_by_dependency(typeshed_dir: str, distributions: list[str]) -> Iterator[str]:
+def sort_by_dependency(
+    typeshed_dir: str, distributions: Iterable[str]
+) -> Iterator[str]:
     # Just a simple topological sort. Unlike previous versions of the code, we do not rely
     # on this to perform validation, like requiring the graph to be complete.
     # We only use this to help with edge cases like multiple packages being uploaded
@@ -237,8 +239,13 @@ def sort_by_dependency(typeshed_dir: str, distributions: list[str]) -> Iterator[
         )
         dist_map[metadata.stub_distribution] = dist
 
-    ordered = [dist_map[stub_dist] for stub_dist in ts.static_order()]
-    missing = set(distributions) - set(ordered)
+    # ts.static_order may contain external dependencies, so we filter them out
+    ordered = [
+        dist_map[stub_dist] for stub_dist in ts.static_order() if stub_dist in dist_map
+    ]
+
+    distributions = set(distributions)
+    missing = distributions - set(ordered)
     assert not missing, f"Failed to find distributions {missing}"
 
     for dist in ordered:
diff --git a/tests/test_integration.py b/tests/test_integration.py
index 025c4cbe..397e1d51 100644
--- a/tests/test_integration.py
+++ b/tests/test_integration.py
@@ -132,6 +132,14 @@ def test_recursive_verify_single() -> None:
     assert recursive_verify(m, TYPESHED) == {"types-tzlocal", "types-pytz"}
 
 
+def test_dependency_order_single() -> None:
+    assert list(sort_by_dependency(TYPESHED, ["tzlocal"])) == ["tzlocal"]
+    assert list(sort_by_dependency(TYPESHED, ["tzlocal", "pytz"])) == [
+        "pytz",
+        "tzlocal",
+    ]
+
+
 @pytest.mark.parametrize(
     "distribution", os.listdir(os.path.join(TYPESHED, THIRD_PARTY_NAMESPACE))
 )