diff --git a/sklearn/pipeline.py b/sklearn/pipeline.py
index 8d738d4b90fff..26e1465de9986 100644
--- a/sklearn/pipeline.py
+++ b/sklearn/pipeline.py
@@ -623,8 +623,11 @@ def classes_(self):
 
     def _more_tags(self):
         # check if first estimator expects pairwise input
-        estimator_tags = self.steps[0][1]._get_tags()
-        return {'pairwise': estimator_tags.get('pairwise', False)}
+        try:
+            pairwise = self.steps[0][1]._get_tags().get('pairwise', False)
+        except AttributeError:
+            pairwise = False
+        return {'pairwise': pairwise}
 
     # TODO: Remove in 0.26
     # mypy error: Decorated property not supported
diff --git a/sklearn/tests/test_pipeline.py b/sklearn/tests/test_pipeline.py
index bd88f4acd03c3..d9df891d90128 100644
--- a/sklearn/tests/test_pipeline.py
+++ b/sklearn/tests/test_pipeline.py
@@ -1264,3 +1264,11 @@ def test_feature_union_warns_unknown_transformer_weight():
     union = FeatureUnion(transformer_list, transformer_weights=weights)
     with pytest.raises(ValueError, match=expected_msg):
         union.fit(X, y)
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize('passthrough', [None, 'passthrough'])
+def test_pipeline_get_tags_none(passthrough):
+    """Checks that tags are set correctly when passthrough is None or
+    'passthrough'"""
+    pipe = make_pipeline(passthrough, SVC())
+    assert not pipe._get_tags()['pairwise']