diff --git a/sql-plugin/src/main/scala/com/nvidia/spark/rapids/RmmRapidsRetryIterator.scala b/sql-plugin/src/main/scala/com/nvidia/spark/rapids/RmmRapidsRetryIterator.scala
index f25628cb66b3..fc307bd0a755 100644
--- a/sql-plugin/src/main/scala/com/nvidia/spark/rapids/RmmRapidsRetryIterator.scala
+++ b/sql-plugin/src/main/scala/com/nvidia/spark/rapids/RmmRapidsRetryIterator.scala
@@ -18,6 +18,8 @@ package com.nvidia.spark.rapids
 
 import scala.collection.mutable
 
+import ai.rapids.cudf.CudfColumnSizeOverflowException
+
 import com.nvidia.spark.rapids.Arm.{closeOnExcept, withResource}
 import com.nvidia.spark.rapids.RapidsPluginImplicits._
 import com.nvidia.spark.rapids.ScalableTaskCompletion.onTaskCompletion
@@ -580,9 +582,14 @@ object RmmRapidsRetryIterator extends Logging {
             lastException = ex
 
             if (!topLevelIsRetry && !causedByRetry) {
-              // we want to throw early here, since we got an exception
-              // we were not prepared to handle
-              throw lastException
+              // If the exception is the result of a CUDF column size overflow, attempt split-retry.
+              ex match {
+                case _: CudfColumnSizeOverflowException => doSplit = true
+                case _ =>
+                  // we want to throw early here, since we got an exception
+                  // we were not prepared to handle
+                  throw lastException
+              }
             }
             // else another exception wrapped a retry. So we are going to try again
         }