diff --git a/src/parser/calculate_size.ts b/src/parser/calculate_size.ts
index da62ae6c..557d15a8 100644
--- a/src/parser/calculate_size.ts
+++ b/src/parser/calculate_size.ts
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 import { Binary } from '../binary';
 import type { Document } from '../bson';
-import { BSONVersionError } from '../error';
+import { BSONError, BSONVersionError } from '../error';
 import * as constants from '../constants';
 import { ByteUtils } from '../utils/byte_utils';
 import { isAnyArrayBuffer, isDate, isRegExp } from './utils';
@@ -208,6 +208,10 @@ function calculateElement(
       return 0;
     case 'bigint':
       return (name != null ? ByteUtils.utf8ByteLength(name) + 1 : 0) + (8 + 1);
+    case 'symbol':
+      return 0;
+    default:
+      throw new BSONError(`Unrecognized JS type: ${typeof value}`);
   }
 
   return 0;
diff --git a/test/node/parser/calculate_size.test.ts b/test/node/parser/calculate_size.test.ts
index e421c28f..d7d3387c 100644
--- a/test/node/parser/calculate_size.test.ts
+++ b/test/node/parser/calculate_size.test.ts
@@ -25,9 +25,15 @@ describe('calculateSize()', () => {
     ).to.throw(BSONVersionError, /Unsupported BSON version/i);
   });
 
-  it('returns the correct size for a bigint value', function () {
+  it('returns 8 bytes (+7 meta bytes) size for a bigint value', function () {
     const doc = { a: BigInt(1) };
     expect(BSON.calculateObjectSize(doc)).to.equal(16);
     expect(BSON.calculateObjectSize(doc)).to.equal(BSON.serialize(doc).byteLength);
   });
+
+  it('returns 0 bytes (+5 meta bytes) for a symbol value', function () {
+    const doc = { a: Symbol() };
+    expect(BSON.calculateObjectSize(doc)).to.equal(5);
+    expect(BSON.calculateObjectSize(doc)).to.equal(BSON.serialize(doc).byteLength);
+  });
 });