diff --git a/exporter/prometheusremotewriteexporter/exporter.go b/exporter/prometheusremotewriteexporter/exporter.go
index 2e5eed44746..9698dea39ea 100644
--- a/exporter/prometheusremotewriteexporter/exporter.go
+++ b/exporter/prometheusremotewriteexporter/exporter.go
@@ -31,6 +31,7 @@ import (
 	"github.com/prometheus/prometheus/prompb"
 
 	"go.opentelemetry.io/collector/component/componenterror"
+	"go.opentelemetry.io/collector/consumer/consumererror"
 	"go.opentelemetry.io/collector/consumer/pdata"
 	"go.opentelemetry.io/collector/consumer/pdatautil"
 	otlp "go.opentelemetry.io/collector/internal/data/opentelemetry-proto-gen/metrics/v1"
@@ -88,7 +89,7 @@ func (prwe *PrwExporter) PushMetrics(ctx context.Context, md pdata.Metrics) (int
 		tsMap := map[string]*prompb.TimeSeries{}
 		dropped := 0
 		var errs []error
-
+		permanent := false
 		resourceMetrics := pdata.MetricsToOtlp(md)
 		for _, resourceMetric := range resourceMetrics {
 			if resourceMetric == nil {
@@ -102,6 +103,8 @@ func (prwe *PrwExporter) PushMetrics(ctx context.Context, md pdata.Metrics) (int
 				// TODO: decide if instrumentation library information should be exported as labels
 				for _, metric := range instrumentationMetrics.Metrics {
 					if metric == nil {
+						permanent = true
+						errs = append(errs, errors.New("encountered nil metric"))
 						dropped++
 						continue
 					}
@@ -109,6 +112,7 @@ func (prwe *PrwExporter) PushMetrics(ctx context.Context, md pdata.Metrics) (int
 					if ok := validateMetrics(metric); !ok {
 						dropped++
 						errs = append(errs, errors.New("invalid temporality and type combination"))
+						permanent = true
 						continue
 					}
 					// handle individual metric based on type
@@ -117,11 +121,13 @@ func (prwe *PrwExporter) PushMetrics(ctx context.Context, md pdata.Metrics) (int
 						if err := prwe.handleScalarMetric(tsMap, metric); err != nil {
 							dropped++
 							errs = append(errs, err)
+							permanent = true
 						}
 					case *otlp.Metric_DoubleHistogram, *otlp.Metric_IntHistogram:
 						if err := prwe.handleHistogramMetric(tsMap, metric); err != nil {
 							dropped++
 							errs = append(errs, err)
+							permanent = true
 						}
 					default:
 						dropped++
@@ -134,9 +140,13 @@ func (prwe *PrwExporter) PushMetrics(ctx context.Context, md pdata.Metrics) (int
 		if err := prwe.export(ctx, tsMap); err != nil {
 			dropped = pdatautil.MetricCount(md)
 			errs = append(errs, err)
+			permanent = permanent || consumererror.IsPermanent(err)
 		}
 
 		if dropped != 0 {
+			if permanent {
+				return dropped, consumererror.Permanent(componenterror.CombineErrors(errs))
+			}
 			return dropped, componenterror.CombineErrors(errs)
 		}
 
@@ -212,13 +222,13 @@ func (prwe *PrwExporter) export(ctx context.Context, tsMap map[string]*prompb.Ti
 	//Calls the helper function to convert the TsMap to the desired format
 	req, err := wrapTimeSeries(tsMap)
 	if err != nil {
-		return err
+		return consumererror.Permanent(err)
 	}
 
 	//Uses proto.Marshal to convert the WriteRequest into bytes array
 	data, err := proto.Marshal(req)
 	if err != nil {
-		return err
+		return consumererror.Permanent(err)
 	}
 	buf := make([]byte, len(data), cap(data))
 	compressedData := snappy.Encode(buf, data)
@@ -226,7 +236,7 @@ func (prwe *PrwExporter) export(ctx context.Context, tsMap map[string]*prompb.Ti
 	//Create the HTTP POST request to send to the endpoint
 	httpReq, err := http.NewRequest("POST", prwe.endpointURL.String(), bytes.NewReader(compressedData))
 	if err != nil {
-		return err
+		return consumererror.Permanent(err)
 	}
 
 	// Add necessary headers specified by:
@@ -242,9 +252,13 @@ func (prwe *PrwExporter) export(ctx context.Context, tsMap map[string]*prompb.Ti
 
 	httpResp, err := prwe.client.Do(httpReq)
 	if err != nil {
-		return err
+		return consumererror.Permanent(err)
 	}
 
+	// 2xx status code is considered a success
+	// 5xx errors are recoverable and the exporter should retry
+	// Reference for different behavior according to status code:
+	// https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus/pull/2552/files#diff-ae8db9d16d8057358e49d694522e7186
 	if httpResp.StatusCode/100 != 2 {
 		scanner := bufio.NewScanner(io.LimitReader(httpResp.Body, 256))
 		line := ""
@@ -252,7 +266,11 @@ func (prwe *PrwExporter) export(ctx context.Context, tsMap map[string]*prompb.Ti
 			line = scanner.Text()
 		}
 		errMsg := "server returned HTTP status " + httpResp.Status + ": " + line
-		return errors.New(errMsg)
+		if httpResp.StatusCode >= 500 && httpResp.StatusCode < 600 {
+			return errors.New(errMsg)
+		}
+		return consumererror.Permanent(errors.New(errMsg))
+
 	}
 	return nil
 }
diff --git a/exporter/prometheusremotewriteexporter/exporter_test.go b/exporter/prometheusremotewriteexporter/exporter_test.go
index cbff23b489e..807f721b34e 100644
--- a/exporter/prometheusremotewriteexporter/exporter_test.go
+++ b/exporter/prometheusremotewriteexporter/exporter_test.go
@@ -564,6 +564,15 @@ func Test_PushMetrics(t *testing.T) {
 			0,
 			false,
 		},
+		{
+			"5xx_case",
+			&unmatchedBoundBucketDoubleHistBatch,
+			checkFunc,
+			5,
+			http.StatusServiceUnavailable,
+			1,
+			true,
+		},
 		{
 			"nilDataPointDoubleGauge_case",
 			&nilDataPointDoubleGaugeBatch,