diff --git a/CHANGES.md b/CHANGES.md
index b936ba6dda302..be6e4de248a65 100644
--- a/CHANGES.md
+++ b/CHANGES.md
@@ -77,6 +77,7 @@
   as strings rather than silently coerced (and possibly truncated) to numeric
   values.  To retain the old behavior, pass `dtype=True` (or any other value
   accepted by `pandas.read_json`).
+* Default Kafka version was upgraded from 2.4.1 to 3.1.2
 * X behavior was changed ([#X](https://github.com/apache/beam/issues/X)).
 
 ## Deprecations
diff --git a/buildSrc/src/main/groovy/org/apache/beam/gradle/BeamModulePlugin.groovy b/buildSrc/src/main/groovy/org/apache/beam/gradle/BeamModulePlugin.groovy
index 0110f71974e28..c147f1ab5a494 100644
--- a/buildSrc/src/main/groovy/org/apache/beam/gradle/BeamModulePlugin.groovy
+++ b/buildSrc/src/main/groovy/org/apache/beam/gradle/BeamModulePlugin.groovy
@@ -623,7 +623,7 @@ class BeamModulePlugin implements Plugin<Project> {
     def jaxb_api_version = "2.3.3"
     def jsr305_version = "3.0.2"
     def everit_json_version = "1.14.2"
-    def kafka_version = "2.4.1"
+    def kafka_version = "3.1.2"
     def log4j2_version = "2.20.0"
     def nemo_version = "0.1"
     // [bomupgrader] determined by: io.grpc:grpc-netty, consistent with: google_cloud_platform_libraries_bom
diff --git a/sdks/java/io/kafka/build.gradle b/sdks/java/io/kafka/build.gradle
index 6cba8f8d0fb3d..42c541fd288ba 100644
--- a/sdks/java/io/kafka/build.gradle
+++ b/sdks/java/io/kafka/build.gradle
@@ -44,6 +44,7 @@ def kafkaVersions = [
     '231': "2.3.1",
     '241': "2.4.1",
     '251': "2.5.1",
+    '312': "3.1.2",
 ]
 
 kafkaVersions.each{k,v -> configurations.create("kafkaVersion$k")}
@@ -143,6 +144,7 @@ task kafkaVersionsCompatibilityTest {
   dependsOn (":sdks:java:io:kafka:kafka-231:kafkaVersion231BatchIT")
   dependsOn (":sdks:java:io:kafka:kafka-241:kafkaVersion241BatchIT")
   dependsOn (":sdks:java:io:kafka:kafka-251:kafkaVersion251BatchIT")
+  dependsOn (":sdks:java:io:kafka:kafka-312:kafkaVersion312BatchIT")
 }
 
 static def createTestList(Map<String, String> prefixMap, String suffix) {
diff --git a/sdks/java/io/kafka/kafka-312/build.gradle b/sdks/java/io/kafka/kafka-312/build.gradle
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..af2ad3717b65b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/sdks/java/io/kafka/kafka-312/build.gradle
@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+/*
+ * 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.
+ */
+project.ext {
+    delimited="3.1.2"
+    undelimited="312"
+    sdfCompatible=true
+}
+
+apply from: "../kafka-integration-test.gradle"
\ No newline at end of file