diff --git a/changelogs/unreleased/sidekiq_default_retries.yml b/changelogs/unreleased/sidekiq_default_retries.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..3df2a415dbcb6066dc79fae9c655342784f4979e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/unreleased/sidekiq_default_retries.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+---
+title: Set default Sidekiq retries to 3
+merge_request: 7294
+author: 
diff --git a/config/initializers/sidekiq.rb b/config/initializers/sidekiq.rb
index 0455a98dbfe991eb66b3d189279101ae7ed34399..023af2af23caa75b2e1cd0f725c8fdf123221f3c 100644
--- a/config/initializers/sidekiq.rb
+++ b/config/initializers/sidekiq.rb
@@ -2,6 +2,9 @@
 redis_config_hash = Gitlab::Redis.params
 redis_config_hash[:namespace] = Gitlab::Redis::SIDEKIQ_NAMESPACE
 
+# Default is to retry 25 times with exponential backoff. That's too much.
+Sidekiq.default_worker_options = { retry: 3 }
+
 Sidekiq.configure_server do |config|
   config.redis = redis_config_hash