What does LINQ return when the results are empty

It will return an empty enumerable. It won't be null. You can sleep sound :)

You can also check the .Any() method:

if (!YourResult.Any())

Just a note that .Any will still retrieve the records from the database; doing a .FirstOrDefault()/.Where() will be just as much overhead but you would then be able to catch the object(s) returned from the query

var lst = new List<int>() { 1, 2, 3 };
var ans = lst.Where( i => i > 3 );

(ans == null).Dump();  // False
(ans.Count() == 0 ).Dump();  // True

(Dump is from LinqPad)

.ToList returns an empty list. (same as new List<T>() );

In Linq-to-SQL if you try to get the first element on a query with no results you will get sequence contains no elements error. I can assure you that the mentioned error is not equal to object reference not set to an instance of an object. in conclusion no, it won't return null since null can't say sequence contains no elements it will always say object reference not set to an instance of an object ;)