Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communication are described that support a low peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) precoded reference signal design for multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) transmissions. A user equipment (UE) may identify multiple sets of symbols associated with different reference signal waveforms, where each reference signal waveform may be associated with a low PAPR. In some cases, different single-carrier reference signal waveforms may be mapped to subsets of frequency resources through frequency division multiplexing (FDM) for a transmission on a single antenna. However, the addition of single-carrier waveforms through FDM for a transmission via an antenna may result in an uplink transmission having a high PAPR (e.g., as compared to single-carrier waveforms). The UE may reduce the PAPR of the uplink transmission by multiplexing the reference signal waveforms in the time domain (e.g., using time division multiplexing (TDM)).