A bstract A search for heavy resonances decaying to a pair of Z bosons is performed using data collected with the CMS detector at the LHC. Events are selected by requiring two oppositely charged leptons (electrons or muons), consistent with the decay of a Z boson, and large missing transverse momentum, which is interpreted as arising from the decay of a second Z boson to two neutrinos. The analysis uses data from proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb −1 . The hypothesis of a spin-2 bulk graviton (X) decaying to a pair of Z bosons is examined for 600 ≤ m X ≤ 2500 GeV and upper limits at 95% confidence level are set on the product of the production cross section and branching fraction of X → ZZ ranging from 100 to 4 fb. For bulk graviton models characterized by a curvature scale parameter $$ \tilde{k}=0.5 $$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mover> <mml:mi>k</mml:mi> <mml:mo>˜</mml:mo> </mml:mover> <mml:mo>=</mml:mo> <mml:mn>0.5</mml:mn> </mml:math> in the extra dimension, the region m X &lt; 800 GeV is excluded, providing the most stringent limit reported to date. Variations of the model considering the possibility of a wide resonance produced exclusively via gluon-gluon fusion or $$ \mathrm{q}\overline{\mathrm{q}} $$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mi>q</mml:mi> <mml:mover> <mml:mi>q</mml:mi> <mml:mo>¯</mml:mo> </mml:mover> </mml:math> annihilation are also examined.