diff --git a/google-cloud-clients/pom.xml b/google-cloud-clients/pom.xml
index 9b2f347fad5c..98ea23e948e8 100644
--- a/google-cloud-clients/pom.xml
+++ b/google-cloud-clients/pom.xml
@@ -164,7 +164,7 @@
     <guava.version>28.0-android</guava.version>
     <http-client-bom.version>1.31.0</http-client-bom.version>
     <oauth-client.version>1.30.1</oauth-client.version>
-    <protobuf.version>3.7.1</protobuf.version>
+    <protobuf.version>3.9.1</protobuf.version>
     <!-- make sure to keep opencensus version in sync with grpc -->
     <opencensus.version>0.21.0</opencensus.version>
     <!-- make sure to keep version in sync with google-http-client -->