diff --git a/dev-tools/scripts/smokeTestRelease.py b/dev-tools/scripts/smokeTestRelease.py
index 5b6ae716876..f3b13640363 100755
--- a/dev-tools/scripts/smokeTestRelease.py
+++ b/dev-tools/scripts/smokeTestRelease.py
@@ -264,13 +264,15 @@ def checkSigs(urlString, version, tmpDir, isSigned, keysFile):
   if os.path.exists(gpgHomeDir):
     shutil.rmtree(gpgHomeDir)
   os.makedirs(gpgHomeDir, 0o700)
-  run('gpg --homedir %s --import %s' % (gpgHomeDir, keysFile),
-      '%s/lucene.gpg.import.log' % tmpDir)
+  gpgLogFile = '%s/lucene.gpg.import.log' % tmpDir
+  run('gpg --homedir %s --import %s' % (gpgHomeDir, keysFile), gpgLogFile)
 
   if mavenURL is None:
+    stopGpgAgent(gpgHomeDir, logFile)
     raise RuntimeError('lucene is missing maven')
 
   if changesURL is None:
+    stopGpgAgent(gpgHomeDir, logFile)
     raise RuntimeError('lucene is missing changes-%s' % version)
   testChanges(version, changesURL)
 
@@ -308,6 +310,11 @@ def checkSigs(urlString, version, tmpDir, isSigned, keysFile):
           if line.lower().find('warning') != -1:
             print('      GPG: %s' % line.strip())
 
+      # Make sure to shutdown the GPG agent at the end
+      stopGpgAgent(gpgHomeDir, logFile)
+
+def stopGpgAgent(gpgHomeDir, logFile):
+  run('gpgconf --homedir %s --kill gpg-agent' % (gpgHomeDir), logFile)
 
 def testChanges(version, changesURLString):
   print('  check changes HTML...')
@@ -857,6 +864,8 @@ def verifyMavenSigs(tmpDir, artifacts, keysFile):
     sys.stdout.write('.')
   print()
 
+  # Make sure to shutdown the GPG agent at the end
+  stopGpgAgent(gpgHomeDir, logFile)
 
 def print_warnings_in_file(file):
   with open(file) as f: