diff --git a/buildSrc/src/main/groovy/org/apache/beam/gradle/BeamModulePlugin.groovy b/buildSrc/src/main/groovy/org/apache/beam/gradle/BeamModulePlugin.groovy
index 48a14703ce24..27b7ecb7f09a 100644
--- a/buildSrc/src/main/groovy/org/apache/beam/gradle/BeamModulePlugin.groovy
+++ b/buildSrc/src/main/groovy/org/apache/beam/gradle/BeamModulePlugin.groovy
@@ -1556,7 +1556,7 @@ class BeamModulePlugin implements Plugin<Project> {
           project.exec { commandLine 'virtualenv', "${project.ext.envdir}" }
           project.exec {
             executable 'sh'
-            args '-c', ". ${project.ext.envdir}/bin/activate && pip install --retries 10 --upgrade tox==3.0.0 grpcio-tools==1.3.5"
+            args '-c', ". ${project.ext.envdir}/bin/activate && pip install --retries 10 --upgrade tox==3.7.0 grpcio-tools==1.3.5"
           }
         }
         // Gradle will delete outputs whenever it thinks they are stale. Putting a
diff --git a/sdks/python/build.gradle b/sdks/python/build.gradle
index 860301ed7ff4..7a5f9f5e4949 100644
--- a/sdks/python/build.gradle
+++ b/sdks/python/build.gradle
@@ -100,13 +100,11 @@ assemble.dependsOn docs
 
 toxTask "cover", "cover"
 
+toxTask "testsInParallel", "py27,py3,py27-gcp,py27-lint,py27-lint3,py3-lint,docs"
+
 task preCommit() {
-  dependsOn "docs"
+  dependsOn "testsInParallel"
   dependsOn "testCython"
-  dependsOn "testPython2"
-  dependsOn "testPython3"
-  dependsOn "testGcp"
-  dependsOn "lint"
 }
 
 task portablePreCommit() {
diff --git a/sdks/python/scripts/run_tox.sh b/sdks/python/scripts/run_tox.sh
index 24ccb205913e..239f8991e3f9 100755
--- a/sdks/python/scripts/run_tox.sh
+++ b/sdks/python/scripts/run_tox.sh
@@ -41,7 +41,12 @@ if [[ "*sdks/python" != $PWD ]]; then
   cd $(pwd | sed 's/sdks\/python.*/sdks\/python/')
 fi
 
-tox -c tox.ini --recreate -e $1
+# check if multiple envs are provided. Then we can run them in parallel.
+if [[ $1 == *","* ]]; then
+  parallel='-p all -o'
+fi
+
+tox -c tox.ini --recreate -e $1 $parallel
 exit_code=$?
 # Retry once for the specific exit code 245.
 if [[ $exit_code == 245 ]]; then