The main obstacle in the prediction of the minimum fluidization velocity is probably a reasonable estimate of the bed void fraction at the incipient fluidization condition. An attempt is made here to predict the bed void fraction for the limiting cases of the laminar flow as well as the turbulent flow using well-established correlations, namely the Ergun equation for the pressure drop in packed beds and the Richardson and Zaki correlation. The bed void fractions are found to be 0.415 for the laminar flow and 0.396 for the turbulent flow.