A system and method for positioning in RRC Idle and Inactive states. In some embodiments, the method includes receiving, by a user equipment (UE), in Idle or Inactive state, a downlink positioning reference signal (PRS); transmitting, by the UE, in Idle or Inactive state, an uplink reference signal; and transmitting, by the UE, in Idle or Inactive state, a PUSCH carrying an estimate of the position of the UE. The uplink reference signal may be a positioning sounding reference signal (SRS), or a Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) preamble with sequence length greater than 1151.