diff --git a/CHANGELOG-developer.next.asciidoc b/CHANGELOG-developer.next.asciidoc
index 995b52511b8..29c9ce99f49 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG-developer.next.asciidoc
+++ b/CHANGELOG-developer.next.asciidoc
@@ -100,6 +100,7 @@ The list below covers the major changes between 7.0.0-rc2 and main only.
 - Skip flakey metrics test on windows in filebeat httpjson input. {issue}39676[39676] {pull}39678[39678]
 - Fix flakey test on Windows 2022 in packetbeat/route. {issue}39698[39698] {pull}39822[39822]
 - Fix bug in minimum length for request trace logging. {pull}39834[39834]
+- Close connections properly in Filbeat's HTTPJSON input. {pull}39790[39790]
 
 ==== Added
 
diff --git a/x-pack/filebeat/input/httpjson/policy.go b/x-pack/filebeat/input/httpjson/policy.go
index 0c671cb85bb..43360c1ed0f 100644
--- a/x-pack/filebeat/input/httpjson/policy.go
+++ b/x-pack/filebeat/input/httpjson/policy.go
@@ -91,6 +91,12 @@ func (p *Policy) CustomRetryPolicy(ctx context.Context, resp *http.Response, err
 	// errors and may relate to outages on the server side. This will catch
 	// invalid response codes as well, like 0 and 999.
 	if resp.StatusCode == 0 || (resp.StatusCode >= 500 && resp.StatusCode != 501) {
+		defer func() {
+			if resp.Body != nil {
+				_, _ = io.Copy(io.Discard, resp.Body)
+				resp.Body.Close()
+			}
+		}()
 		return true, nil
 	}
 
diff --git a/x-pack/filebeat/input/httpjson/request.go b/x-pack/filebeat/input/httpjson/request.go
index 3e63f026716..b15f3db51b1 100644
--- a/x-pack/filebeat/input/httpjson/request.go
+++ b/x-pack/filebeat/input/httpjson/request.go
@@ -676,6 +676,7 @@ func (r *requester) processChainPaginationEvents(ctx context.Context, trCtx *tra
 			if err != nil {
 				return -1, fmt.Errorf("failed to collect response: %w", err)
 			}
+
 			// store data according to response type
 			if i == len(r.requestFactories)-1 && len(ids) != 0 {
 				finalResps = append(finalResps, httpResp)
@@ -702,12 +703,6 @@ func (r *requester) processChainPaginationEvents(ctx context.Context, trCtx *tra
 		n += p.eventCount()
 	}
 
-	defer func() {
-		if httpResp != nil && httpResp.Body != nil {
-			httpResp.Body.Close()
-		}
-	}()
-
 	return n, nil
 }