diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 36b01a34533..37daabe74a3 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -5,6 +5,10 @@ PHP                                                                        NEWS
 - mbstring:
   . Fixed bug #66797 (mb_substr only takes 32-bit signed integer). (cmb)
 
+- SOAP:
+  . Fixed bug #71996 (Using references in arrays doesn't work like expected).
+    (Nikita)
+
 - Standard:
   . Fixed bug #71882 (Negative ftruncate() on php://memory exhausts memory).
     (cmb)
diff --git a/ext/soap/php_encoding.c b/ext/soap/php_encoding.c
index fc389f2365e..9c9e4e9e560 100644
--- a/ext/soap/php_encoding.c
+++ b/ext/soap/php_encoding.c
@@ -2120,6 +2120,7 @@ static void add_xml_array_elements(xmlNodePtr xmlParam,
 	 		if (j >= dims[0]) {
 	 			break;
 	 		}
+			ZVAL_DEREF(zdata);
  			if (dimension == 1) {
  				if (enc == NULL) {
 					xparam = master_to_xml(get_conversion(Z_TYPE_P(zdata)), zdata, style, xmlParam);
diff --git a/ext/soap/tests/bug71996.phpt b/ext/soap/tests/bug71996.phpt
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..c4bb092b22b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ext/soap/tests/bug71996.phpt
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+--TEST--
+Bug #71996: Using references in arrays doesn't work like expected
+--SKIPIF--
+<?php require_once('skipif.inc'); ?>
+--FILE--
+<?php
+
+$client = new class(null, ['location' => '', 'uri' => 'http://example.org']) extends SoapClient {
+    public function __doRequest($request, $location, $action, $version, $one_way = 0) {
+        echo $request;
+        return '';
+    }
+};
+$ref = array("foo");
+$data = array(&$ref);
+$client->foo($data);
+
+?>
+--EXPECT--
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:ns1="http://example.org" xmlns:SOAP-ENC="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"><SOAP-ENV:Body><ns1:foo><param0 SOAP-ENC:arrayType="SOAP-ENC:Array[1]" xsi:type="SOAP-ENC:Array"><item SOAP-ENC:arrayType="xsd:string[1]" xsi:type="SOAP-ENC:Array"><item xsi:type="xsd:string">foo</item></item></param0></ns1:foo></SOAP-ENV:Body></SOAP-ENV:Envelope>