diff --git a/google/config.go b/google/config.go
index ddfdc9f0..2e57c312 100644
--- a/google/config.go
+++ b/google/config.go
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ import (
 	"fmt"
 	"log"
 	"net/http"
+	"time"
 
 	"github.com/hashicorp/terraform/helper/logging"
 	"github.com/hashicorp/terraform/helper/pathorcontents"
@@ -114,6 +115,10 @@ func (c *Config) loadAndValidate() error {
 
 	client := oauth2.NewClient(context.Background(), tokenSource)
 	client.Transport = logging.NewTransport("Google", client.Transport)
+	// Each individual request should return within 30s - timeouts will be retried.
+	// This is a timeout for, e.g. a single GET request of an operation - not a
+	// timeout for the maximum amount of time a logical request can take.
+	client.Timeout, _ = time.ParseDuration("30s")
 
 	terraformVersion := httpclient.UserAgentString()
 	providerVersion := fmt.Sprintf("terraform-provider-google/%s", version.ProviderVersion)
diff --git a/google/utils.go b/google/utils.go
index 67883350..68dfb8ef 100644
--- a/google/utils.go
+++ b/google/utils.go
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ import (
 	"encoding/hex"
 	"fmt"
 	"log"
+	"net/url"
 	"strings"
 	"time"
 
@@ -343,6 +344,11 @@ func isRetryableError(err error) bool {
 	if gerr, ok := err.(*googleapi.Error); ok && (gerr.Code == 409 || gerr.Code == 429 || gerr.Code == 500 || gerr.Code == 502 || gerr.Code == 503) {
 		return true
 	}
+	// These operations are always hitting googleapis.com - they should rarely
+	// time out, and if they do, that timeout is retryable.
+	if urlerr, ok := err.(*url.Error); ok && urlerr.Timeout() {
+		return true
+	}
 	return false
 }