Techniques are described for reusing downstream-assigned labels when establishing a new label switched path (LSP) between an ingress router and an egress router prior to tearing down an existing LSP using make-before-break (MBB) procedures for the Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP). In one example, a router receives, a first message requesting establishment of an LSP including a tunnel identifier pair. The router compares the tunnel identifier pair for the requested LSP to existing LSP information stored at the router. Based on a determination that the tunnel identifier pair for the requested LSP is the same as a tunnel identifier pair for an existing LSP, the router assigns a label used by the router to identify incoming traffic associated with the requested LSP that is the same as a previously allocated label for the existing LSP without updating labels in a forwarding table of a forwarding plane of the router.