diff --git a/flink-connectors/flink-connector-hive/src/main/java/org/apache/flink/table/catalog/hive/HiveCatalog.java b/flink-connectors/flink-connector-hive/src/main/java/org/apache/flink/table/catalog/hive/HiveCatalog.java
index da38771caed1c..11edd0c8120fd 100644
--- a/flink-connectors/flink-connector-hive/src/main/java/org/apache/flink/table/catalog/hive/HiveCatalog.java
+++ b/flink-connectors/flink-connector-hive/src/main/java/org/apache/flink/table/catalog/hive/HiveCatalog.java
@@ -253,10 +253,14 @@ public static HiveConf createHiveConf(
             hadoopConf = new Configuration();
         }
         // ignore all the static conf file URLs that HiveConf may have set
+        URL originalHiveSiteURL = HiveConf.getHiveSiteLocation();
         HiveConf.setHiveSiteLocation(null);
         HiveConf.setLoadMetastoreConfig(false);
         HiveConf.setLoadHiveServer2Config(false);
         HiveConf hiveConf = new HiveConf(hadoopConf, HiveConf.class);
+        // set it back if there was a hive-site.xml to keep HiveConf behaviour as expected
+        HiveConf.setHiveSiteLocation(originalHiveSiteURL);
+
 
         LOG.info("Setting hive conf dir as {}", hiveConfDir);