Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. In a wireless communications system, one or more user equipments (UEs) may implement distance-limited sidelink-based ranging techniques. An initiating UE may transmit one or more positioning reference signal (PRS) request messages to one or more target UEs via a sidelink channel. In some cases, the initiating UE may receive one or more response messages from at least one target UE that is located within a threshold distance from the initiating UE. In some examples, based on receiving the one or more response messages, the initiating UE may transmit PRSs to each target UE that transmitted a response message.