diff --git a/runners/google-cloud-dataflow-java/src/test/java/org/apache/beam/runners/dataflow/LargeCommitTest.java b/runners/google-cloud-dataflow-java/src/test/java/org/apache/beam/runners/dataflow/LargeCommitTest.java
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..26f1e60b6773
--- /dev/null
+++ b/runners/google-cloud-dataflow-java/src/test/java/org/apache/beam/runners/dataflow/LargeCommitTest.java
@@ -0,0 +1,73 @@
+/*
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+ * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+ * distributed with this work for additional information
+ * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+ * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+ * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+ * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+package org.apache.beam.runners.dataflow;
+
+import static org.hamcrest.MatcherAssert.assertThat;
+import static org.junit.Assert.assertEquals;
+import static org.junit.Assert.assertFalse;
+import static org.junit.Assert.assertTrue;
+
+import org.apache.beam.sdk.testing.PAssert;
+import org.apache.beam.sdk.testing.TestPipeline;
+import org.apache.beam.sdk.testing.ValidatesRunner;
+import org.apache.beam.sdk.transforms.Create;
+import org.apache.beam.sdk.transforms.GroupByKey;
+import org.apache.beam.sdk.values.KV;
+import org.apache.beam.sdk.values.PCollection;
+import org.hamcrest.Matchers;
+import org.junit.Rule;
+import org.junit.Test;
+import org.junit.experimental.categories.Category;
+import org.junit.runner.RunWith;
+import org.junit.runners.JUnit4;
+
+@RunWith(JUnit4.class)
+public class LargeCommitTest {
+
+  @Rule public transient TestPipeline p = TestPipeline.create();
+
+  @Test
+  @Category({ValidatesRunner.class})
+  public void testLargeCommit() {
+    // 5 50MB values shuffling to a single key
+    String value = bigString('a', 50 << 20);
+    KV<String, String> kv = KV.of("a", value);
+    PCollection<KV<String, Iterable<String>>> result =
+        p.apply(Create.of(kv, kv, kv, kv, kv)).apply(GroupByKey.create());
+
+    PAssert.that(result)
+        .satisfies(
+            kvs -> {
+              assertTrue(kvs.iterator().hasNext());
+              KV<String, Iterable<String>> outputKV = kvs.iterator().next();
+              assertFalse(kvs.iterator().hasNext());
+              assertEquals("a", outputKV.getKey());
+              assertThat(outputKV.getValue(), Matchers.contains(value, value, value, value, value));
+              return null;
+            });
+    p.run();
+  }
+
+  private static String bigString(char c, int size) {
+    char[] buf = new char[size];
+    for (int i = 0; i < size; i++) {
+      buf[i] = c;
+    }
+    return new String(buf);
+  }
+}
diff --git a/runners/google-cloud-dataflow-java/worker/src/main/java/org/apache/beam/runners/dataflow/worker/OperationalLimits.java b/runners/google-cloud-dataflow-java/worker/src/main/java/org/apache/beam/runners/dataflow/worker/OperationalLimits.java
index 84f41c473fe0..2a42e3cfa3f9 100644
--- a/runners/google-cloud-dataflow-java/worker/src/main/java/org/apache/beam/runners/dataflow/worker/OperationalLimits.java
+++ b/runners/google-cloud-dataflow-java/worker/src/main/java/org/apache/beam/runners/dataflow/worker/OperationalLimits.java
@@ -25,8 +25,6 @@
 @Internal
 public abstract class OperationalLimits {
 
-  private static final long DEFAULT_MAX_WORK_ITEM_COMMIT_BYTES = 180 << 20;
-
   // Maximum size of a commit from a single work item.
   public abstract long getMaxWorkItemCommitBytes();
   // Maximum size of a single output element's serialized key.
@@ -48,7 +46,7 @@ public abstract static class Builder {
 
   public static OperationalLimits.Builder builder() {
     return new AutoValue_OperationalLimits.Builder()
-        .setMaxWorkItemCommitBytes(DEFAULT_MAX_WORK_ITEM_COMMIT_BYTES)
+        .setMaxWorkItemCommitBytes(Long.MAX_VALUE)
         .setMaxOutputKeyBytes(Long.MAX_VALUE)
         .setMaxOutputValueBytes(Long.MAX_VALUE);
   }