diff --git a/r/R/arrow-package.R b/r/R/arrow-package.R
index f3e0b817d5f..4d9e05dd836 100644
--- a/r/R/arrow-package.R
+++ b/r/R/arrow-package.R
@@ -81,6 +81,14 @@
   invisible()
 }
 
+.onUnload <- function(...) {
+  # When running valgrind we need to wait for the thread pools to finish
+  # running background tasks or else spurious memory leaks may be reported.
+  if (on_linux_dev()) {
+    WaitForIdleThreadPool()
+  }
+}
+
 configure_tzdb <- function() {
   # This is needed on Windows to support timezone-aware calculations
   if (requireNamespace("tzdb", quietly = TRUE)) {
diff --git a/r/R/arrowExports.R b/r/R/arrowExports.R
index ab3358d6664..c747c02d68a 100644
--- a/r/R/arrowExports.R
+++ b/r/R/arrowExports.R
@@ -2028,6 +2028,10 @@ SetIOThreadPoolCapacity <- function(threads) {
   invisible(.Call(`_arrow_SetIOThreadPoolCapacity`, threads))
 }
 
+WaitForIdleThreadPool <- function() {
+  invisible(.Call(`_arrow_WaitForIdleThreadPool`))
+}
+
 Array__infer_type <- function(x) {
   .Call(`_arrow_Array__infer_type`, x)
 }
diff --git a/r/src/arrowExports.cpp b/r/src/arrowExports.cpp
index adb6636e9ee..4a4978f9785 100644
--- a/r/src/arrowExports.cpp
+++ b/r/src/arrowExports.cpp
@@ -5116,6 +5116,14 @@ BEGIN_CPP11
 	return R_NilValue;
 END_CPP11
 }
+// threadpool.cpp
+void WaitForIdleThreadPool();
+extern "C" SEXP _arrow_WaitForIdleThreadPool(){
+BEGIN_CPP11
+	WaitForIdleThreadPool();
+	return R_NilValue;
+END_CPP11
+}
 // type_infer.cpp
 std::shared_ptr<arrow::DataType> Array__infer_type(SEXP x);
 extern "C" SEXP _arrow_Array__infer_type(SEXP x_sexp){
@@ -5692,6 +5700,7 @@ static const R_CallMethodDef CallEntries[] = {
 		{ "_arrow_SetCpuThreadPoolCapacity", (DL_FUNC) &_arrow_SetCpuThreadPoolCapacity, 1}, 
 		{ "_arrow_GetIOThreadPoolCapacity", (DL_FUNC) &_arrow_GetIOThreadPoolCapacity, 0}, 
 		{ "_arrow_SetIOThreadPoolCapacity", (DL_FUNC) &_arrow_SetIOThreadPoolCapacity, 1}, 
+		{ "_arrow_WaitForIdleThreadPool", (DL_FUNC) &_arrow_WaitForIdleThreadPool, 0}, 
 		{ "_arrow_Array__infer_type", (DL_FUNC) &_arrow_Array__infer_type, 1}, 
 		{NULL, NULL, 0}
 };
diff --git a/r/src/threadpool.cpp b/r/src/threadpool.cpp
index 83e7a7ecfe6..9630046a487 100644
--- a/r/src/threadpool.cpp
+++ b/r/src/threadpool.cpp
@@ -54,3 +54,17 @@ int GetIOThreadPoolCapacity() { return arrow::io::GetIOThreadPoolCapacity(); }
 void SetIOThreadPoolCapacity(int threads) {
   StopIfNotOk(arrow::io::SetIOThreadPoolCapacity(threads));
 }
+
+namespace arrow {
+namespace io {
+namespace internal {
+arrow::internal::ThreadPool* GetIOThreadPool();
+}
+}  // namespace io
+}  // namespace arrow
+
+// [[arrow::export]]
+void WaitForIdleThreadPool() {
+  arrow::internal::GetCpuThreadPool()->WaitForIdle();
+  arrow::io::internal::GetIOThreadPool()->WaitForIdle();
+}