diff --git a/docs/how-to/integrations/machine-translation.md b/docs/how-to/integrations/machine-translation.md
index 9673ddbd..653bba0d 100644
--- a/docs/how-to/integrations/machine-translation.md
+++ b/docs/how-to/integrations/machine-translation.md
@@ -146,6 +146,7 @@ WAGTAILLOCALIZE_MACHINE_TRANSLATOR = {
         "LIBRETRANSLATE_URL": "https://libretranslate.org",  # or your self-hosted instance URL
         # For self-hosted instances without API key setup, use a random string as the API key.
         "API_KEY": "<Your LibreTranslate api key here>",
+        "TIMEOUT": 40 # optional timeout in seconds, defaults to 10
     },
 }
 ```
diff --git a/wagtail_localize/machine_translators/libretranslate.py b/wagtail_localize/machine_translators/libretranslate.py
index b897fb53..32a6a74f 100644
--- a/wagtail_localize/machine_translators/libretranslate.py
+++ b/wagtail_localize/machine_translators/libretranslate.py
@@ -19,6 +19,9 @@ class LibreTranslator(BaseMachineTranslator):
     def get_api_endpoint(self):
         return self.options["LIBRETRANSLATE_URL"]
 
+    def get_timeout(self):
+        return self.options.get("TIMEOUT", 10)
+
     def language_code(self, code):
         return code.split("-")[0]
 
@@ -36,7 +39,7 @@ def translate(self, source_locale, target_locale, strings):
                 }
             ),
             headers={"Content-Type": "application/json"},
-            timeout=10,
+            timeout=self.get_timeout(),
         )
         response.raise_for_status()