diff --git a/dataflow/flex-templates/kafka_to_bigquery/pom.xml b/dataflow/flex-templates/kafka_to_bigquery/pom.xml
index 15018853ae4..3c388d41ab7 100644
--- a/dataflow/flex-templates/kafka_to_bigquery/pom.xml
+++ b/dataflow/flex-templates/kafka_to_bigquery/pom.xml
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@
     <maven.compiler.target>11</maven.compiler.target>
     <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
     <beam.version>2.40.0</beam.version>
-    <kafka.version>7.0.2-ce</kafka.version>
+    <kafka.version>7.3.1-ce</kafka.version>
     <maven-enforcer-plugin.version>3.1.0</maven-enforcer-plugin.version>
     <maven-compiler-plugin.version>3.10.1</maven-compiler-plugin.version>
     <maven-shade-plugin.version>3.2.4</maven-shade-plugin.version>