diff --git a/java-bigquery/google-cloud-bigquery/src/test/java/com/google/cloud/bigquery/it/ITBigQueryTest.java b/java-bigquery/google-cloud-bigquery/src/test/java/com/google/cloud/bigquery/it/ITBigQueryTest.java
index 0fba4f9c8241..dbad4634c52a 100644
--- a/java-bigquery/google-cloud-bigquery/src/test/java/com/google/cloud/bigquery/it/ITBigQueryTest.java
+++ b/java-bigquery/google-cloud-bigquery/src/test/java/com/google/cloud/bigquery/it/ITBigQueryTest.java
@@ -1184,6 +1184,9 @@ static void beforeClass() throws InterruptedException, IOException {
     Job jobLargeTable = bigquery.create(JobInfo.of(configurationLargeTable));
     jobLargeTable = jobLargeTable.waitFor();
     assertNull(jobLargeTable.getStatus().getError());
+
+    // Warmup query to initialize connection and avoid cold start timeout in subsequent tests
+    bigquery.query(QueryJobConfiguration.of("SELECT 1"));
   }
 
   @AfterAll