diff --git a/docs/docs/dev_docs/getting_started/sandbox.md b/docs/docs/dev_docs/getting_started/sandbox.md
index 621a9e68c0d..02566ec22af 100644
--- a/docs/docs/dev_docs/getting_started/sandbox.md
+++ b/docs/docs/dev_docs/getting_started/sandbox.md
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ It will download and execute a script invoking docker compose with 2 containers:
 - Anvil
 - Aztec Sandbox
 
-It will need to create servers on localhost ports 8545 (Anvil) and 8080 (Sandbox) so you will need to ensure nothing conflicts with this.
+2 ports will need to be opened on your system in order for you to interact with the sandbox. The first port is for Anvil, it defaults to 8545 and can be overridden by specifying a value in the environment variable `SANDBOX_ANVIL_PORT`. The second is the sandbox RPC host port. It defaults to value 8080 but can be overridden with environment variable `SANDBOX_RPC_PORT`.
 
 Within a few seconds the Sandbox should be up and running!
 
diff --git a/yarn-project/aztec-sandbox/docker-compose.yml b/yarn-project/aztec-sandbox/docker-compose.yml
index e6da4cef6bb..365e0626beb 100644
--- a/yarn-project/aztec-sandbox/docker-compose.yml
+++ b/yarn-project/aztec-sandbox/docker-compose.yml
@@ -4,12 +4,12 @@ services:
     image: ghcr.io/foundry-rs/foundry:v1.0.0
     command: '"anvil --silent -p 8545 --host 0.0.0.0 --chain-id 31337"'
     ports:
-      - '8545:8545'
+      - '${SANDBOX_ANVIL_PORT:-8545}:8545'
 
   aztec:
     image: 'aztecprotocol/aztec-sandbox:${SANDBOX_VERSION:-latest}'
     ports:
-      - '8080:8080'
+      - '${SANDBOX_RPC_PORT:-8080}:8080'
     environment:
       DEBUG: # Loaded from the user shell if explicitly set
       HOST_WORKDIR: '${PWD}' # Loaded from the user shell to show log files absolute path in host