diff --git a/.changes/unreleased/Dependencies-20250813-144832.yaml b/.changes/unreleased/Dependencies-20250813-144832.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..6be54c08ea0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.changes/unreleased/Dependencies-20250813-144832.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+kind: Dependencies
+body: upgrade protobuf to 6.0
+time: 2025-08-13T14:48:32.380929-07:00
+custom:
+  Author: colin-rogers-dbt
+  Issue: "11916"
diff --git a/core/setup.py b/core/setup.py
index 07cfd159d96..da0df9a105e 100644
--- a/core/setup.py
+++ b/core/setup.py
@@ -61,6 +61,7 @@
         # with major versions in each new minor version of dbt-core.
         "click>=8.0.2,<9",
         "networkx>=2.3,<4",
+        "protobuf>=6.0,<7.0",
         # ----
         # These packages are major-version-0. Keep upper bounds on upcoming minor versions (which could have breaking changes)
         # and check compatibility / bump in each new minor version of dbt-core.
@@ -79,7 +80,6 @@
         # Expect compatibility with all new versions of these packages, so lower bounds only.
         "jsonschema>=3.0",
         "packaging>20.9",
-        "protobuf>=4.0.0,<5",
         "pytz>=2015.7",
         "pyyaml>=6.0",
         "typing-extensions>=3.7.4",
diff --git a/dev-requirements.txt b/dev-requirements.txt
index df6893053b2..ac6011d0c52 100644
--- a/dev-requirements.txt
+++ b/dev-requirements.txt
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ ipdb
 mypy==1.4.1
 pip-tools
 pre-commit
-protobuf>=4.0.0,<5.0.0
+protobuf>=6.0,<7.0
 pytest~=7.4
 pytest-cov
 pytest-csv~=3.0
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ types-freezegun
 types-Jinja2
 types-jsonschema
 types-mock
-types-protobuf>=4.0.0,<5.0.0
+types-protobuf>=6.0.0,<7.0.0
 types-python-dateutil
 types-pytz
 types-requests<2.31.0 # types-requests 2.31.0.8 requires urllib3>=2, but we pin urllib3 ~= 1.0 because of openssl requirement for requests