diff --git a/tests/unittest/others/test_import_side_effects.py b/tests/unittest/others/test_import_side_effects.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..c4b8cf71673d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/unittest/others/test_import_side_effects.py
@@ -0,0 +1,91 @@
+# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: Copyright (c) 2026 NVIDIA CORPORATION & AFFILIATES. All rights reserved.
+# SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
+#
+# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+# You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+"""Guards against CUDA side effects of ``import tensorrt_llm``.
+
+Importing tensorrt_llm must not create a CUDA context: every process pays the
+context + module memory (~0.5-1.2 GiB depending on arch) on its default device,
+including processes that never launch a kernel (e.g. the trtllm-bench parent)
+and MPI workers that have not yet called ``torch.cuda.set_device``. Those
+contexts are resident when the KV cache pool is sized from free GPU memory,
+silently shrinking it (nvbug 6419139: ~10% throughput regression on RTX 6000D
+between 1.3.0rc19 and 1.3.0rc20, caused by an import-time deep_gemm.set_pdl()
+call instantiating DeepGEMM's DeviceRuntime).
+"""
+
+import os
+import subprocess
+import sys
+
+import pytest
+import torch
+
+_PDL_FLAG_SCRIPT = r"""
+import sys
+
+import tensorrt_llm  # noqa: F401  (the import under test)
+from tensorrt_llm._torch.pyexecutor import model_engine
+
+if model_engine._DEEP_GEMM_PDL_CONFIGURED:
+    sys.exit("DeepGEMM PDL was configured at import time; it must stay lazy "
+             "(nvbug 6419139): deep_gemm.set_pdl() instantiates DeepGEMM's "
+             "DeviceRuntime and creates a CUDA context")
+"""
+
+_NO_CONTEXT_SCRIPT = r"""
+import os
+import sys
+
+import pynvml
+
+pynvml.nvmlInit()
+# NVML indices are physical and ignore CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES; the test runner
+# pins CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES to a single physical index, so use that one.
+physical = int(os.environ["CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES"])
+handle = pynvml.nvmlDeviceGetHandleByIndex(physical)
+
+import tensorrt_llm  # noqa: F401  (the import under test)
+
+procs = pynvml.nvmlDeviceGetComputeRunningProcesses(handle)
+mine = [p for p in procs if p.pid == os.getpid()]
+if mine:
+    used = (mine[0].usedGpuMemory or 0) >> 20
+    sys.exit(f"import tensorrt_llm created a CUDA context using {used} MiB")
+"""
+
+
+def _run_in_subprocess(script: str) -> subprocess.CompletedProcess:
+    env = os.environ.copy()
+    # Pin to one physical device so the pynvml handle and the CUDA default
+    # device agree regardless of the outer environment.
+    visible = env.get("CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES", "").split(",")[0] or "0"
+    env["CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES"] = visible
+    return subprocess.run([sys.executable, "-c", script],
+                          env=env,
+                          capture_output=True,
+                          text=True,
+                          timeout=300)
+
+
+def test_deep_gemm_pdl_configuration_is_lazy():
+    """DeepGEMM PDL setup must not run at import (nvbug 6419139)."""
+    result = _run_in_subprocess(_PDL_FLAG_SCRIPT)
+    assert result.returncode == 0, (result.stdout + result.stderr)
+
+
+@pytest.mark.skipif(not torch.cuda.is_available(),
+                    reason="requires a CUDA device")
+def test_import_creates_no_cuda_context():
+    result = _run_in_subprocess(_NO_CONTEXT_SCRIPT)
+    assert result.returncode == 0, (result.stdout + result.stderr)