diff --git a/sdks/java/io/common/src/test/java/org/apache/beam/sdk/io/common/DatabaseTestHelper.java b/sdks/java/io/common/src/test/java/org/apache/beam/sdk/io/common/DatabaseTestHelper.java
index 3cfe08ba4d11..1204fa7ada61 100644
--- a/sdks/java/io/common/src/test/java/org/apache/beam/sdk/io/common/DatabaseTestHelper.java
+++ b/sdks/java/io/common/src/test/java/org/apache/beam/sdk/io/common/DatabaseTestHelper.java
@@ -34,8 +34,13 @@
 import java.util.Optional;
 import java.util.stream.Collectors;
 import javax.sql.DataSource;
+import org.apache.beam.sdk.util.BackOff;
+import org.apache.beam.sdk.util.BackOffUtils;
+import org.apache.beam.sdk.util.FluentBackoff;
+import org.apache.beam.sdk.util.Sleeper;
 import org.apache.beam.sdk.values.KV;
 import org.apache.beam.vendor.guava.v26_0_jre.com.google.common.collect.Lists;
+import org.joda.time.Duration;
 import org.postgresql.ds.PGSimpleDataSource;
 import org.testcontainers.containers.JdbcDatabaseContainer;
 
@@ -86,9 +91,40 @@ public static void createTable(
         fieldsAndTypes.stream()
             .map(kv -> kv.getKey() + " " + kv.getValue())
             .collect(Collectors.joining(", "));
-    try (Connection connection = dataSource.getConnection()) {
-      try (Statement statement = connection.createStatement()) {
-        statement.execute(String.format("create table %s (%s)", tableName, fieldsList));
+    SQLException exception = null;
+    Sleeper sleeper = Sleeper.DEFAULT;
+    BackOff backoff =
+        FluentBackoff.DEFAULT
+            .withInitialBackoff(Duration.standardSeconds(1))
+            .withMaxCumulativeBackoff(Duration.standardMinutes(5))
+            .withMaxRetries(4)
+            .backoff();
+    while (true) {
+      // This is not implemented as try-with-resources because it appears that try-with-resources is
+      // not correctly catching the PSQLException thrown by dataSource.getConnection()
+      Connection connection = null;
+      try {
+        connection = dataSource.getConnection();
+        try (Statement statement = connection.createStatement()) {
+          statement.execute(String.format("create table %s (%s)", tableName, fieldsList));
+          return;
+        }
+      } catch (SQLException e) {
+        exception = e;
+      } finally {
+        if (connection != null) {
+          connection.close();
+        }
+      }
+      boolean hasNext;
+      try {
+        hasNext = BackOffUtils.next(sleeper, backoff);
+      } catch (Exception e) {
+        throw new RuntimeException(e);
+      }
+      if (!hasNext) {
+        // we tried the max number of times
+        throw exception;
       }
     }
   }