diff --git a/.github/workflows/test.yml b/.github/workflows/test.yml
index 9987f6f8d3..cd7dafab7c 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/test.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/test.yml
@@ -32,5 +32,16 @@ jobs:
       with:
         image: ghcr.io/osbuild/osbuild-ci:latest-202308241910
         run: |
+          # Note that only "test.run.test_stages" runs in parallel because
+          # the other tests are not sufficiently isolated and will cause
+          # random failures. But test_stages is the long running one with
+          # almost 2h.
+          if [ "${{ matrix.test }}" = "test.run.test_stages" ]; then
+              # Using 4 workers is a bit arbitrary, "auto" is probably too
+              # aggressive.
+              export TEST_WORKERS="-n 4"
+              # Share the store between the workers speeds things up further
+              export OSBUILD_TEST_STORE=/var/tmp/osbuild-test-store
+          fi
           TEST_CATEGORY="${{ matrix.test }}" \
           tox -e "${{ matrix.environment }}"
diff --git a/tox.ini b/tox.ini
index 30b1b3b726..04da534e82 100644
--- a/tox.ini
+++ b/tox.ini
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ labels =
 description = "run osbuild unit tests"
 deps =
     pytest
+    pytest-xdist
     jsonschema
     mako
     iniparse
@@ -26,7 +27,7 @@ passenv =
     TEST_CATEGORY
 
 commands =
-    bash -c 'python -m pytest --pyargs --rootdir=. {env:TEST_CATEGORY}'
+    bash -c 'python -m pytest --pyargs --rootdir=. {env:TEST_CATEGORY} {env:TEST_WORKERS}'
 
 allowlist_externals =
     bash