diff --git a/datafusion/common/src/config.rs b/datafusion/common/src/config.rs
index 1c746a4e98405..1e0f63d6d81ca 100644
--- a/datafusion/common/src/config.rs
+++ b/datafusion/common/src/config.rs
@@ -300,7 +300,7 @@ config_namespace! {
         /// concurrency.
         ///
         /// Defaults to the number of CPU cores on the system
-        pub target_partitions: usize, default = get_available_parallelism()
+        pub target_partitions: usize, transform = ExecutionOptions::normalized_parallelism, default = get_available_parallelism()
 
         /// The default time zone
         ///
@@ -316,7 +316,7 @@ config_namespace! {
         /// This is mostly use to plan `UNION` children in parallel.
         ///
         /// Defaults to the number of CPU cores on the system
-        pub planning_concurrency: usize, default = get_available_parallelism()
+        pub planning_concurrency: usize, transform = ExecutionOptions::normalized_parallelism, default = get_available_parallelism()
 
         /// When set to true, skips verifying that the schema produced by
         /// planning the input of `LogicalPlan::Aggregate` exactly matches the
@@ -739,6 +739,19 @@ config_namespace! {
     }
 }
 
+impl ExecutionOptions {
+    /// Returns the correct parallelism based on the provided `value`.
+    /// If `value` is `"0"`, returns the default available parallelism, computed with
+    /// `get_available_parallelism`. Otherwise, returns `value`.
+    fn normalized_parallelism(value: &str) -> String {
+        if value.parse::<usize>() == Ok(0) {
+            get_available_parallelism().to_string()
+        } else {
+            value.to_owned()
+        }
+    }
+}
+
 /// A key value pair, with a corresponding description
 #[derive(Debug)]
 pub struct ConfigEntry {
diff --git a/datafusion/execution/src/config.rs b/datafusion/execution/src/config.rs
index 53646dc5b468e..1e00a1ce4725e 100644
--- a/datafusion/execution/src/config.rs
+++ b/datafusion/execution/src/config.rs
@@ -193,9 +193,11 @@ impl SessionConfig {
     ///
     /// [`target_partitions`]: datafusion_common::config::ExecutionOptions::target_partitions
     pub fn with_target_partitions(mut self, n: usize) -> Self {
-        // partition count must be greater than zero
-        assert!(n > 0);
-        self.options.execution.target_partitions = n;
+        self.options.execution.target_partitions = if n == 0 {
+            datafusion_common::config::ExecutionOptions::default().target_partitions
+        } else {
+            n
+        };
         self
     }
 
diff --git a/datafusion/sqllogictest/test_files/information_schema.slt b/datafusion/sqllogictest/test_files/information_schema.slt
index 4964bcbc735cd..87abaadb516f3 100644
--- a/datafusion/sqllogictest/test_files/information_schema.slt
+++ b/datafusion/sqllogictest/test_files/information_schema.slt
@@ -149,6 +149,39 @@ drop table t
 statement ok
 drop table t2
 
+
+############
+## 0 to represent the default value (target_partitions and planning_concurrency)
+###########
+
+statement ok
+SET datafusion.execution.target_partitions = 3;
+
+statement ok
+SET datafusion.execution.planning_concurrency = 3;
+
+# when setting target_partitions and planning_concurrency to 3, their values will be 3
+query TB rowsort
+SELECT name, value = 3 FROM information_schema.df_settings WHERE name IN ('datafusion.execution.target_partitions', 'datafusion.execution.planning_concurrency');
+----
+datafusion.execution.planning_concurrency true
+datafusion.execution.target_partitions true
+
+statement ok
+SET datafusion.execution.target_partitions = 0;
+
+statement ok
+SET datafusion.execution.planning_concurrency = 0;
+
+# when setting target_partitions and planning_concurrency to 0, their values will be equal to the
+# default values, which are different from 0 (which is invalid)
+query TB rowsort
+SELECT name, value = 0 FROM information_schema.df_settings WHERE name IN ('datafusion.execution.target_partitions', 'datafusion.execution.planning_concurrency');
+----
+datafusion.execution.planning_concurrency false
+datafusion.execution.target_partitions false
+
+
 ############
 ## SHOW VARIABLES should work
 ###########