diff --git a/pageserver/src/http/routes.rs b/pageserver/src/http/routes.rs
index 200b91fc82..9bb761dc48 100644
--- a/pageserver/src/http/routes.rs
+++ b/pageserver/src/http/routes.rs
@@ -2274,6 +2274,7 @@ async fn timeline_compact_handler(
     if Some(true) == parse_query_param::<_, bool>(&request, "dry_run")? {
         flags |= CompactFlags::DryRun;
     }
+    // Manual compaction does not yield for L0.
 
     let wait_until_uploaded =
         parse_query_param::<_, bool>(&request, "wait_until_uploaded")?.unwrap_or(false);
diff --git a/pageserver/src/tenant/timeline/compaction.rs b/pageserver/src/tenant/timeline/compaction.rs
index 8e3be8e7f4..7b1969f209 100644
--- a/pageserver/src/tenant/timeline/compaction.rs
+++ b/pageserver/src/tenant/timeline/compaction.rs
@@ -317,6 +317,9 @@ impl GcCompactionQueue {
                     flags: {
                         let mut flags = EnumSet::new();
                         flags |= CompactFlags::EnhancedGcBottomMostCompaction;
+                        if timeline.get_compaction_l0_first() {
+                            flags |= CompactFlags::YieldForL0;
+                        }
                         flags
                     },
                     sub_compaction: true,
diff --git a/test_runner/regress/test_compaction.py b/test_runner/regress/test_compaction.py
index 6789939e0c..087fafb327 100644
--- a/test_runner/regress/test_compaction.py
+++ b/test_runner/regress/test_compaction.py
@@ -38,12 +38,34 @@ PREEMPT_COMPACTION_TENANT_CONF = {
     "compaction_target_size": 1024**2,
     "image_creation_threshold": 1,
     "image_creation_preempt_threshold": 1,
-    # compact more frequently
+    # Compact more frequently
     "compaction_threshold": 3,
     "compaction_upper_limit": 6,
     "lsn_lease_length": "0s",
 }
 
+PREEMPT_GC_COMPACTION_TENANT_CONF = {
+    "gc_period": "5s",
+    "compaction_period": "5s",
+    # Small checkpoint distance to create many layers
+    "checkpoint_distance": 1024**2,
+    # Compact small layers
+    "compaction_target_size": 1024**2,
+    "image_creation_threshold": 10000,  # Do not create image layers at all
+    "image_creation_preempt_threshold": 10000,
+    # Compact more frequently
+    "compaction_threshold": 3,
+    "compaction_upper_limit": 6,
+    "lsn_lease_length": "0s",
+    # Enable gc-compaction
+    "gc_compaction_enabled": "true",
+    "gc_compaction_initial_threshold_kb": 1024,  # At a small threshold
+    "gc_compaction_ratio_percent": 1,
+    # No PiTR interval and small GC horizon
+    "pitr_interval": "0s",
+    "gc_horizon": f"{1024**2}",
+}
+
 
 @skip_in_debug_build("only run with release build")
 @pytest.mark.parametrize(
@@ -165,6 +187,41 @@ def test_pageserver_compaction_preempt(
     env.pageserver.assert_log_contains("resuming image layer creation")
 
 
+@skip_in_debug_build("only run with release build")
+def test_pageserver_gc_compaction_preempt(
+    neon_env_builder: NeonEnvBuilder,
+):
+    # Ideally we should be able to do unit tests for this, but we need real Postgres
+    # WALs in order to do unit testing...
+
+    conf = PREEMPT_GC_COMPACTION_TENANT_CONF.copy()
+    env = neon_env_builder.init_start(initial_tenant_conf=conf)
+
+    tenant_id = env.initial_tenant
+    timeline_id = env.initial_timeline
+
+    row_count = 200000
+    churn_rounds = 10
+
+    ps_http = env.pageserver.http_client()
+
+    workload = Workload(env, tenant_id, timeline_id)
+    workload.init(env.pageserver.id)
+
+    log.info("Writing initial data ...")
+    workload.write_rows(row_count, env.pageserver.id)
+
+    for i in range(1, churn_rounds + 1):
+        log.info(f"Running churn round {i}/{churn_rounds} ...")
+        workload.churn_rows(row_count, env.pageserver.id, upload=False)
+        workload.validate(env.pageserver.id)
+    ps_http.timeline_compact(tenant_id, timeline_id, wait_until_uploaded=True)
+    log.info("Validating at workload end ...")
+    workload.validate(env.pageserver.id)
+    # ensure gc_compaction gets preempted and then resumed
+    env.pageserver.assert_log_contains("preempt gc-compaction")
+
+
 @skip_in_debug_build("only run with release build")
 @pytest.mark.timeout(900)  # This test is slow with sanitizers enabled, especially on ARM
 @pytest.mark.parametrize(