diff --git a/examples/nvme/perf/perf.c b/examples/nvme/perf/perf.c
index e28778911..26e750749 100644
--- a/examples/nvme/perf/perf.c
+++ b/examples/nvme/perf/perf.c
@@ -272,6 +272,10 @@ static bool g_exit;
 static uint32_t g_keep_alive_timeout_in_ms = 10000;
 static uint32_t g_quiet_count = 1;
 static double g_zipf_theta;
+/* Set default io_queue_size to UINT16_MAX, NVMe driver will then reduce this
+ * to MQES to maximize the io_queue_size as much as possible.
+ */
+static uint32_t g_io_queue_size = UINT16_MAX;
 
 /* When user specifies -Q, some error messages are rate limited.  When rate
  * limited, we only print the error message every g_quiet_count times the
@@ -1793,6 +1797,7 @@ static void usage(char *program_name)
 #endif
 	printf("\t[--transport-stats dump transport statistics]\n");
 	printf("\t[--iova-mode <mode> specify DPDK IOVA mode: va|pa]\n");
+	printf("\t[--io-queue-size <val> size of NVMe IO queue. Default: maximum allowed by controller]\n");
 }
 
 static void
@@ -2286,6 +2291,8 @@ static const struct option g_perf_cmdline_opts[] = {
 	{"transport-stats", no_argument, NULL, PERF_TRANSPORT_STATISTICS},
 #define PERF_IOVA_MODE		258
 	{"iova-mode", required_argument, NULL, PERF_IOVA_MODE},
+#define PERF_IO_QUEUE_SIZE	259
+	{"io-queue-size", required_argument, NULL, PERF_IO_QUEUE_SIZE},
 	/* Should be the last element */
 	{0, 0, 0, 0}
 };
@@ -2314,6 +2321,7 @@ parse_args(int argc, char **argv, struct spdk_env_opts *env_opts)
 		case PERF_RW_MIXREAD:
 		case PERF_NUM_UNUSED_IO_QPAIRS:
 		case PERF_SKIP_ERRORS:
+		case PERF_IO_QUEUE_SIZE:
 			val = spdk_strtol(optarg, 10);
 			if (val < 0) {
 				fprintf(stderr, "Converting a string to integer failed\n");
@@ -2370,6 +2378,9 @@ parse_args(int argc, char **argv, struct spdk_env_opts *env_opts)
 				}
 				g_io_align_specified = true;
 				break;
+			case PERF_IO_QUEUE_SIZE:
+				g_io_queue_size = val;
+				break;
 			}
 			break;
 		case PERF_ZIPF:
@@ -2630,11 +2641,7 @@ probe_cb(void *cb_ctx, const struct spdk_nvme_transport_id *trid,
 		return false;
 	}
 
-	/* Set io_queue_size to UINT16_MAX, NVMe driver
-	 * will then reduce this to MQES to maximize
-	 * the io_queue_size as much as possible.
-	 */
-	opts->io_queue_size = UINT16_MAX;
+	opts->io_queue_size = g_io_queue_size;
 
 	/* Set the header and data_digest */
 	opts->header_digest = g_header_digest;