diff --git a/sentry-opentelemetry/sentry-opentelemetry-agent/README.md b/sentry-opentelemetry/sentry-opentelemetry-agent/README.md
index 0cb681aba6..92ddb89a1c 100644
--- a/sentry-opentelemetry/sentry-opentelemetry-agent/README.md
+++ b/sentry-opentelemetry/sentry-opentelemetry-agent/README.md
@@ -38,6 +38,13 @@ Sentry.init(
 Using the `otel` instrumenter will ensure `Sentry` instrumentation will be done via OpenTelemetry
 and integrations as well as direct interactions with transactions and spans have no effect.
 
+## Controlling auto initialization of Sentry
+
+By default if you pass either `SENTRY_DSN` or `SENTRY_PROPERTIES_FILE` as environment variable,
+Sentry will automatically be initialized by this agent. To disable this behaviour, you can set
+`SENTRY_AUTO_INIT=false` as environment variable. You will then have to initialize Sentry inside
+the target application.
+
 ## Debugging
 
 To enable debug logging for Sentry, please provide `SENTRY_DEBUG=true` as environment variable or
diff --git a/sentry-opentelemetry/sentry-opentelemetry-agentcustomization/src/main/java/io/sentry/opentelemetry/SentryAutoConfigurationCustomizerProvider.java b/sentry-opentelemetry/sentry-opentelemetry-agentcustomization/src/main/java/io/sentry/opentelemetry/SentryAutoConfigurationCustomizerProvider.java
index 0f2e4db976..b11e988dd3 100644
--- a/sentry-opentelemetry/sentry-opentelemetry-agentcustomization/src/main/java/io/sentry/opentelemetry/SentryAutoConfigurationCustomizerProvider.java
+++ b/sentry-opentelemetry/sentry-opentelemetry-agentcustomization/src/main/java/io/sentry/opentelemetry/SentryAutoConfigurationCustomizerProvider.java
@@ -23,10 +23,7 @@ public final class SentryAutoConfigurationCustomizerProvider
 
   @Override
   public void customize(AutoConfigurationCustomizer autoConfiguration) {
-    final @Nullable String sentryPropertiesFile = System.getenv("SENTRY_PROPERTIES_FILE");
-    final @Nullable String sentryDsn = System.getenv("SENTRY_DSN");
-
-    if (sentryPropertiesFile != null || sentryDsn != null) {
+    if (isSentryAutoInitEnabled()) {
       Sentry.init(
           options -> {
             options.setEnableExternalConfiguration(true);
@@ -43,6 +40,19 @@ public void customize(AutoConfigurationCustomizer autoConfiguration) {
         .addPropertiesSupplier(this::getDefaultProperties);
   }
 
+  private boolean isSentryAutoInitEnabled() {
+    final @Nullable String sentryAutoInit = System.getenv("SENTRY_AUTO_INIT");
+
+    if (sentryAutoInit != null) {
+      return "true".equalsIgnoreCase(sentryAutoInit);
+    } else {
+      final @Nullable String sentryPropertiesFile = System.getenv("SENTRY_PROPERTIES_FILE");
+      final @Nullable String sentryDsn = System.getenv("SENTRY_DSN");
+
+      return sentryPropertiesFile != null || sentryDsn != null;
+    }
+  }
+
   private @Nullable SdkVersion createSdkVersion(final @NotNull SentryOptions sentryOptions) {
     SdkVersion sdkVersion = sentryOptions.getSdkVersion();