Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. Sidelink UEs may be configured with a synchronization reference signal that may be used by the UEs to synchronize time and frequency resources. A first and second UE may perform a beam sweeping procedure to identify transmit and receive beams to use for communications between the UEs. A synchronization reference signal procedure may be initiated and the first UE may receive a sidelink synchronization reference signal from the second UE using the established receive beam. The UEs may align time and frequency resources for communications between the UEs and the UEs may communicate via the sidelink channel based on the time synchronization, frequency synchronization, or both, determined using the sidelink synchronization signal. In some cases, a sidelink UE may receive multiple synchronization reference signals from multiple sidelink UEs simultaneously, where each synchronization reference signal may include a UE identifier.