diff --git a/src/hdmf/backends/hdf5/h5tools.py b/src/hdmf/backends/hdf5/h5tools.py
index a6a4e4a25..66605409b 100644
--- a/src/hdmf/backends/hdf5/h5tools.py
+++ b/src/hdmf/backends/hdf5/h5tools.py
@@ -908,8 +908,6 @@ def get_type(cls, data):
         "utf-8": H5_TEXT,
         "ascii": H5_BINARY,
         "bytes": H5_BINARY,
-        "ref": H5_REF,
-        "reference": H5_REF,
         "object": H5_REF,
         "isodatetime": H5_TEXT,
         "datetime": H5_TEXT,