diff --git a/tests/system/test_client.py b/tests/system/test_client.py
index 43b3b6ae7..077bb2886 100644
--- a/tests/system/test_client.py
+++ b/tests/system/test_client.py
@@ -1725,7 +1725,7 @@ def test_dbapi_connection_does_not_leak_sockets(self):
 
         connection.close()
         conn_count_end = len(current_process.connections())
-        self.assertEqual(conn_count_end, conn_count_start)
+        self.assertLessEqual(conn_count_end, conn_count_start)
 
     def _load_table_for_dml(self, rows, dataset_id, table_id):
         from google.cloud._testing import _NamedTemporaryFile