diff --git a/vllm/distributed/parallel_state.py b/vllm/distributed/parallel_state.py
index 602bcebc017dd..ef229299b6848 100644
--- a/vllm/distributed/parallel_state.py
+++ b/vllm/distributed/parallel_state.py
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ import weakref
 from collections import namedtuple
 from contextlib import contextmanager, nullcontext
 from dataclasses import dataclass
+from datetime import timedelta
 from multiprocessing import shared_memory
 from typing import Any, Callable, Optional, Union
 from unittest.mock import patch
@@ -978,13 +979,12 @@ def set_custom_all_reduce(enable: bool):
     _ENABLE_CUSTOM_ALL_REDUCE = enable
 
 
-def init_distributed_environment(
-    world_size: int = -1,
-    rank: int = -1,
-    distributed_init_method: str = "env://",
-    local_rank: int = -1,
-    backend: str = "nccl",
-):
+def init_distributed_environment(world_size: int = -1,
+                                 rank: int = -1,
+                                 distributed_init_method: str = "env://",
+                                 local_rank: int = -1,
+                                 backend: str = "nccl",
+                                 timeout: Optional[timedelta] = None):
     logger.debug(
         "world_size=%d rank=%d local_rank=%d "
         "distributed_init_method=%s backend=%s", world_size, rank, local_rank,
@@ -1020,7 +1020,8 @@ def init_distributed_environment(
             backend=backend,
             init_method=distributed_init_method,
             world_size=world_size,
-            rank=rank)
+            rank=rank,
+            timeout=timeout)
     # set the local rank
     # local_rank is not available in torch ProcessGroup,
     # see https://github.com/pytorch/pytorch/issues/122816