diff --git a/apis/eks/v1beta1/reference.go b/apis/eks/v1beta1/reference.go
index 97105fe388..31f8e5591c 100644
--- a/apis/eks/v1beta1/reference.go
+++ b/apis/eks/v1beta1/reference.go
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+// SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2024 The Crossplane Authors <https://crossplane.io>
+//
+// SPDX-License-Identifier: CC0-1.0
+
 package v1beta1
 
 import (
diff --git a/apis/eks/v1beta2/reference.go b/apis/eks/v1beta2/reference.go
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..f0e388cb29
--- /dev/null
+++ b/apis/eks/v1beta2/reference.go
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+// SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2024 The Crossplane Authors <https://crossplane.io>
+//
+// SPDX-License-Identifier: CC0-1.0
+
+package v1beta2
+
+import (
+	"github.com/crossplane/crossplane-runtime/pkg/reference"
+	xpresource "github.com/crossplane/crossplane-runtime/pkg/resource"
+	"k8s.io/utils/ptr"
+)
+
+// ExternalNameIfClusterActive returns the external name only if the EKS cluster
+// is in ACTIVE state.
+func ExternalNameIfClusterActive() reference.ExtractValueFn {
+	return func(mr xpresource.Managed) string {
+		cl, ok := mr.(*Cluster)
+		if !ok {
+			return ""
+		}
+		if ptr.Deref(cl.Status.AtProvider.Status, "") != "ACTIVE" {
+			return ""
+		}
+		return reference.ExternalName()(mr)
+	}
+}