diff --git a/runners/google-cloud-dataflow-java/src/main/java/org/apache/beam/runners/dataflow/DataflowRunner.java b/runners/google-cloud-dataflow-java/src/main/java/org/apache/beam/runners/dataflow/DataflowRunner.java
index 6d0d59f38815..5422c26656d7 100644
--- a/runners/google-cloud-dataflow-java/src/main/java/org/apache/beam/runners/dataflow/DataflowRunner.java
+++ b/runners/google-cloud-dataflow-java/src/main/java/org/apache/beam/runners/dataflow/DataflowRunner.java
@@ -2320,7 +2320,9 @@ static boolean useUnifiedWorker(DataflowPipelineOptions options) {
     return hasExperiment(options, "beam_fn_api")
         || hasExperiment(options, "use_runner_v2")
         || hasExperiment(options, "use_unified_worker")
-        || (hasExperiment(options, "enable_prime")
+        || ((hasExperiment(options, "enable_prime")
+                || firstNonNull(options.getDataflowServiceOptions(), new ArrayList<>())
+                    .contains("enable_prime"))
             && !hasExperiment(options, "disable_prime_runner_v2"));
   }