diff --git a/docs/plugins/discovery-ec2.asciidoc b/docs/plugins/discovery-ec2.asciidoc
index 57b5b8468fafb..723bd171b5432 100644
--- a/docs/plugins/discovery-ec2.asciidoc
+++ b/docs/plugins/discovery-ec2.asciidoc
@@ -52,9 +52,8 @@ Those that must be stored in the keystore are marked as `Secure`.
 
 `endpoint`::
 
-    The ec2 service endpoint to connect to. See
-    http://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/rande.html#ec2_region. This
-    defaults to `ec2.us-east-1.amazonaws.com`.
+    The ec2 service endpoint to connect to. See http://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/rande.html#ec2_region.
+    This defaults to `ec2.us-east-1.amazonaws.com`.
 
 `protocol`::
 
diff --git a/plugins/discovery-ec2/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/discovery/ec2/AwsEc2ServiceImpl.java b/plugins/discovery-ec2/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/discovery/ec2/AwsEc2ServiceImpl.java
index 5f384c049124e..aa85ee11f2caf 100644
--- a/plugins/discovery-ec2/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/discovery/ec2/AwsEc2ServiceImpl.java
+++ b/plugins/discovery-ec2/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/discovery/ec2/AwsEc2ServiceImpl.java
@@ -23,12 +23,14 @@
 import com.amazonaws.auth.AWSCredentials;
 import com.amazonaws.auth.AWSCredentialsProvider;
 import com.amazonaws.auth.DefaultAWSCredentialsProviderChain;
+import com.amazonaws.client.builder.AwsClientBuilder;
 import com.amazonaws.http.IdleConnectionReaper;
 import com.amazonaws.internal.StaticCredentialsProvider;
+import com.amazonaws.regions.InstanceMetadataRegionProvider;
 import com.amazonaws.retry.RetryPolicy;
 import com.amazonaws.services.ec2.AmazonEC2;
-import com.amazonaws.services.ec2.AmazonEC2Client;
-
+import com.amazonaws.services.ec2.AmazonEC2ClientBuilder;
+import com.amazonaws.util.AwsHostNameUtils;
 import org.apache.logging.log4j.LogManager;
 import org.apache.logging.log4j.Logger;
 import org.elasticsearch.ElasticsearchException;
@@ -40,7 +42,7 @@
 import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicReference;
 
 class AwsEc2ServiceImpl implements AwsEc2Service {
-    
+
     private static final Logger logger = LogManager.getLogger(AwsEc2ServiceImpl.class);
 
     private final AtomicReference<LazyInitializable<AmazonEc2Reference, ElasticsearchException>> lazyClientReference =
@@ -49,20 +51,50 @@ class AwsEc2ServiceImpl implements AwsEc2Service {
     private AmazonEC2 buildClient(Ec2ClientSettings clientSettings) {
         final AWSCredentialsProvider credentials = buildCredentials(logger, clientSettings);
         final ClientConfiguration configuration = buildConfiguration(logger, clientSettings);
-        final AmazonEC2 client = buildClient(credentials, configuration);
+
+        final AwsClientBuilder.EndpointConfiguration endpointConfiguration;
         if (Strings.hasText(clientSettings.endpoint)) {
             logger.debug("using explicit ec2 endpoint [{}]", clientSettings.endpoint);
-            client.setEndpoint(clientSettings.endpoint);
+            endpointConfiguration = new AwsClientBuilder.EndpointConfiguration(clientSettings.endpoint,
+                buildRegion(clientSettings.endpoint));
+        } else {
+            logger.debug("No endpoint defined. Using default endpoint [ec2.us-east-1.amazonaws.com].");
+            endpointConfiguration = null;
         }
+
+        final AmazonEC2 client = buildClient(credentials, configuration, endpointConfiguration);
         return client;
     }
 
     // proxy for testing
-    AmazonEC2 buildClient(AWSCredentialsProvider credentials, ClientConfiguration configuration) {
-        final AmazonEC2 client = new AmazonEC2Client(credentials, configuration);
+    AmazonEC2 buildClient(AWSCredentialsProvider credentials, ClientConfiguration configuration,
+                          AwsClientBuilder.EndpointConfiguration endpointConfiguration) {
+
+        AmazonEC2ClientBuilder builder = AmazonEC2ClientBuilder.standard()
+            .withCredentials(credentials)
+            .withClientConfiguration(configuration);
+        if (endpointConfiguration != null) {
+            builder.setEndpointConfiguration(endpointConfiguration);
+        }
+        final AmazonEC2 client = builder.build();
         return client;
     }
 
+    // Package private for tests
+    static String buildRegion(String endpoint) {
+        // We try to get the region from the metadata instance information
+        String region = new InstanceMetadataRegionProvider().getRegion();
+        if (region == null) {
+            // Or we try to get it from the endpoint itself
+            region = AwsHostNameUtils.parseRegion(endpoint, null);
+            if (region == null) {
+                // Endpoint is non-standard
+                throw new IllegalArgumentException("Can not guess a region from endpoint [" + endpoint + "].");
+            }
+        }
+        return region;
+    }
+
     // pkg private for tests
     static ClientConfiguration buildConfiguration(Logger logger, Ec2ClientSettings clientSettings) {
         final ClientConfiguration clientConfiguration = new ClientConfiguration();
diff --git a/plugins/discovery-ec2/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/discovery/ec2/AwsEc2ServiceImplTests.java b/plugins/discovery-ec2/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/discovery/ec2/AwsEc2ServiceImplTests.java
index 148e58d7b3c06..1ecbeb0fa54d5 100644
--- a/plugins/discovery-ec2/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/discovery/ec2/AwsEc2ServiceImplTests.java
+++ b/plugins/discovery-ec2/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/discovery/ec2/AwsEc2ServiceImplTests.java
@@ -132,4 +132,11 @@ protected void launchAWSConfigurationTest(Settings settings,
         assertThat(configuration.getSocketTimeout(), is(expectedReadTimeout));
     }
 
+    public void testBuildRegion() {
+        assertThat(AwsEc2ServiceImpl.buildRegion("ec2.us-east-1.amazonaws.com"), is("us-east-1"));
+        assertThat(AwsEc2ServiceImpl.buildRegion("ec2.eu-west-3.amazonaws.com"), is("eu-west-3"));
+        IllegalArgumentException exception = expectThrows(IllegalArgumentException.class,
+            () -> AwsEc2ServiceImpl.buildRegion("foo.bar.nodomain"));
+        assertThat(exception.getMessage(), is("Can not guess a region from endpoint [foo.bar.nodomain]."));
+    }
 }
diff --git a/plugins/discovery-ec2/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/discovery/ec2/AwsEc2ServiceMock.java b/plugins/discovery-ec2/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/discovery/ec2/AwsEc2ServiceMock.java
index e44087f941349..81b129a5a6373 100644
--- a/plugins/discovery-ec2/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/discovery/ec2/AwsEc2ServiceMock.java
+++ b/plugins/discovery-ec2/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/discovery/ec2/AwsEc2ServiceMock.java
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@
 
 import com.amazonaws.ClientConfiguration;
 import com.amazonaws.auth.AWSCredentialsProvider;
+import com.amazonaws.client.builder.AwsClientBuilder;
 import com.amazonaws.services.ec2.AmazonEC2;
 import com.amazonaws.services.ec2.model.Tag;
 
@@ -37,7 +38,8 @@ public AwsEc2ServiceMock(int nodes, List<List<Tag>> tagsList) {
     }
 
     @Override
-    AmazonEC2 buildClient(AWSCredentialsProvider credentials, ClientConfiguration configuration) {
+    AmazonEC2 buildClient(AWSCredentialsProvider credentials, ClientConfiguration configuration,
+                          AwsClientBuilder.EndpointConfiguration endpointConfiguration) {
         return new AmazonEC2Mock(nodes, tagsList, credentials, configuration);
     }