diff --git a/common/reasoning-budget.cpp b/common/reasoning-budget.cpp
index c6e1f86c9..958c9cacf 100644
--- a/common/reasoning-budget.cpp
+++ b/common/reasoning-budget.cpp
@@ -171,22 +171,12 @@ static void common_reasoning_budget_reset(struct llama_sampler * smpl) {
     ctx->force_pos = 0;
 }
 
-// forward declaration for use in clone
 static struct llama_sampler * common_reasoning_budget_init_state(
         const struct llama_vocab * vocab, const std::vector<llama_token> & start_tokens,
         const std::vector<llama_token> & end_tokens, const std::vector<llama_token> & forced_tokens,
         int32_t budget, common_reasoning_budget_state initial_state);
 
-static struct llama_sampler * common_reasoning_budget_clone(const struct llama_sampler * smpl) {
-    const auto * ctx = (const common_reasoning_budget_ctx *) smpl->ctx;
-    return common_reasoning_budget_init_state(
-        ctx->vocab,
-        ctx->start_matcher.tokens,
-        ctx->end_matcher.tokens,
-        ctx->forced_tokens,
-        ctx->budget,
-        ctx->state);
-}
+static struct llama_sampler * common_reasoning_budget_clone(const struct llama_sampler * smpl);
 
 static void common_reasoning_budget_free(struct llama_sampler * smpl) {
     delete (common_reasoning_budget_ctx *) smpl->ctx;
@@ -205,6 +195,15 @@ static struct llama_sampler_i common_reasoning_budget_i = {
     /* .backend_set_input = */ nullptr,
 };
 
+static struct llama_sampler * common_reasoning_budget_clone(const struct llama_sampler * smpl) {
+    const auto * ctx = (const common_reasoning_budget_ctx *) smpl->ctx;
+
+    return llama_sampler_init(
+        /* .iface = */ &common_reasoning_budget_i,
+        /* .ctx   = */ new common_reasoning_budget_ctx(*ctx)
+    );
+}
+
 static struct llama_sampler * common_reasoning_budget_init_state(
         const struct llama_vocab             * vocab,
         const std::vector<llama_token>       & start_tokens,
diff --git a/tests/test-reasoning-budget.cpp b/tests/test-reasoning-budget.cpp
index f7a601789..10d0ac21d 100644
--- a/tests/test-reasoning-budget.cpp
+++ b/tests/test-reasoning-budget.cpp
@@ -124,6 +124,66 @@ static void test_reasoning_budget(
     (void)sequence;
 }
 
+static llama_token get_forced_token(struct llama_sampler * sampler, llama_token max_token) {
+    std::vector<llama_token_data> cur;
+    const size_t n_vocab = (size_t) max_token + 1;
+    for (size_t i = 0; i < n_vocab; i++) {
+        cur.emplace_back(llama_token_data{(llama_token) i, logf((float) (i + 1)), 0.0f});
+    }
+
+    llama_token_data_array cur_p = { cur.data(), cur.size(), -1, false };
+    llama_sampler_apply(sampler, &cur_p);
+
+    size_t finite_count = 0;
+    llama_token finite_token = LLAMA_TOKEN_NULL;
+    for (size_t i = 0; i < cur.size(); i++) {
+        if (std::isfinite(cur[i].logit)) {
+            finite_count++;
+            finite_token = cur[i].id;
+        }
+    }
+
+    GGML_ASSERT(finite_count == 1 && "sampler is not forcing exactly one token");
+    return finite_token;
+}
+
+static void test_reasoning_budget_clone_mid_counting() {
+    const std::vector<llama_token> start = {100};
+    const std::vector<llama_token> end = {101};
+    const std::vector<llama_token> forced = {102, 101};
+
+    auto * sampler = common_reasoning_budget_init(nullptr, start, end, forced, 2, REASONING_BUDGET_IDLE);
+
+    llama_sampler_accept(sampler, 100); // COUNTING, remaining=2
+    llama_sampler_accept(sampler, 50);  // COUNTING, remaining=1
+
+    auto * clone = llama_sampler_clone(sampler);
+    llama_sampler_accept(clone, 51); // should exhaust the cloned remaining budget
+
+    GGML_ASSERT(get_forced_token(clone, 102) == 102 && "cloned counting state lost remaining budget");
+
+    llama_sampler_free(clone);
+    llama_sampler_free(sampler);
+}
+
+static void test_reasoning_budget_clone_mid_forcing() {
+    const std::vector<llama_token> start = {100};
+    const std::vector<llama_token> end = {101};
+    const std::vector<llama_token> forced = {102, 101};
+
+    auto * sampler = common_reasoning_budget_init(nullptr, start, end, forced, 0, REASONING_BUDGET_FORCING);
+
+    GGML_ASSERT(get_forced_token(sampler, 102) == 102);
+    llama_sampler_accept(sampler, 102); // advance to the second forced token
+
+    auto * clone = llama_sampler_clone(sampler);
+
+    GGML_ASSERT(get_forced_token(clone, 102) == 101 && "cloned forcing state lost force position");
+
+    llama_sampler_free(clone);
+    llama_sampler_free(sampler);
+}
+
 // UTF-8 boundary detection unit test
 // Tests common_utf8_is_complete() from reasoning-budget.h
 static void test_utf8_boundary_detection() {
@@ -250,7 +310,10 @@ int main(void) {
             7);     // forcing continues through i=7
     }
 
-    printf("OK (6 tests passed)\n");
+    test_reasoning_budget_clone_mid_counting();
+    test_reasoning_budget_clone_mid_forcing();
+
+    printf("OK (8 tests passed)\n");
 
     printf("Testing UTF-8 boundary detection... ");
     test_utf8_boundary_detection();