diff --git a/CHANGELOG.next.asciidoc b/CHANGELOG.next.asciidoc
index a4c3648af99c..04096b992e19 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.next.asciidoc
+++ b/CHANGELOG.next.asciidoc
@@ -136,6 +136,7 @@ otherwise no tag is added. {issue}42208[42208] {pull}42403[42403]
 - Fix `dns` processor to handle IPv6 server addresses properly. {pull}44526[44526]
 - Fix an issue where the Kafka output could get stuck if a proxied connection to the Kafka cluster was reset. {issue}44606[44606]
 - Use Debian 11 to build linux/arm to match linux/amd64. Upgrades linux/arm64's statically linked glibc from 2.28 to 2.31. {issue}44816[44816]
+- The Elasticsearch output now correctly applies exponential backoff when being throttled by 429s ("too many requests") from Elasticsarch. {issue}36926[36926] {pull}45073[45073]
 
 *Auditbeat*
 
diff --git a/libbeat/outputs/backoff.go b/libbeat/outputs/backoff.go
index 87d94bb66d0d..502d3d67d1af 100644
--- a/libbeat/outputs/backoff.go
+++ b/libbeat/outputs/backoff.go
@@ -30,24 +30,25 @@ import (
 type backoffClient struct {
 	client NetworkClient
 
-	done    chan struct{}
-	backoff backoff.Backoff
+	done           chan struct{}
+	connectBackoff backoff.Backoff
+	publishBackoff backoff.Backoff
 }
 
 // WithBackoff wraps a NetworkClient, adding exponential backoff support to a network client if connection/publishing failed.
 func WithBackoff(client NetworkClient, init, max time.Duration) NetworkClient {
 	done := make(chan struct{})
-	backoff := backoff.NewEqualJitterBackoff(done, init, max)
 	return &backoffClient{
-		client:  client,
-		done:    done,
-		backoff: backoff,
+		client:         client,
+		done:           done,
+		connectBackoff: backoff.NewEqualJitterBackoff(done, init, max),
+		publishBackoff: backoff.NewEqualJitterBackoff(done, init, max),
 	}
 }
 
 func (b *backoffClient) Connect(ctx context.Context) error {
 	err := b.client.Connect(ctx)
-	backoff.WaitOnError(b.backoff, err)
+	backoff.WaitOnError(b.connectBackoff, err)
 	return err
 }
 
@@ -62,7 +63,7 @@ func (b *backoffClient) Publish(ctx context.Context, batch publisher.Batch) erro
 	if err != nil {
 		b.client.Close()
 	}
-	backoff.WaitOnError(b.backoff, err)
+	backoff.WaitOnError(b.publishBackoff, err)
 	return err
 }
 
diff --git a/libbeat/outputs/elasticsearch/client.go b/libbeat/outputs/elasticsearch/client.go
index c39a7c663505..599b827048bd 100644
--- a/libbeat/outputs/elasticsearch/client.go
+++ b/libbeat/outputs/elasticsearch/client.go
@@ -43,7 +43,9 @@ import (
 var (
 	errPayloadTooLarge = errors.New("the bulk payload is too large for the server. Consider to adjust `http.max_content_length` parameter in Elasticsearch or `bulk_max_size` in the beat. The batch has been dropped")
 
-	ErrTooOld = errors.New("Elasticsearch is too old. Please upgrade the instance. If you would like to connect to older instances set output.elasticsearch.allow_older_versions to true") //nolint:staticcheck //false positive
+	ErrTooOld = errors.New("Elasticsearch is too old. Please upgrade the instance. If you would like to connect to older instances set output.elasticsearch.allow_older_versions to true") //nolint:staticcheck //false positive (Elasticsearch should be capitalized)
+
+	errTooMany = errors.New("Elasticsearch returned error 429 Too Many Requests, throttling connection") //nolint:staticcheck //false positive (Elasticsearch should be capitalized)
 )
 
 // Client is an elasticsearch client.
@@ -269,6 +271,15 @@ func (client *Client) Publish(ctx context.Context, batch publisher.Batch) error
 	} else {
 		batch.ACK()
 	}
+	return publishResultForStats(stats)
+}
+
+func publishResultForStats(stats bulkResultStats) error {
+	if stats.tooMany > 0 {
+		// We're being throttled by Elasticsearch, return an error so we
+		// retry the connection with exponential backoff
+		return errTooMany
+	}
 	return nil
 }
 
diff --git a/libbeat/outputs/elasticsearch/client_test.go b/libbeat/outputs/elasticsearch/client_test.go
index 3c2f69f4a25b..2c4c598fdf68 100644
--- a/libbeat/outputs/elasticsearch/client_test.go
+++ b/libbeat/outputs/elasticsearch/client_test.go
@@ -636,6 +636,26 @@ func TestCollectPipelinePublishFail(t *testing.T) {
 	assert.Equal(t, events, res)
 }
 
+func TestPublishResultForStats(t *testing.T) {
+	// publishResultForStats should return errTooMany if it is given
+	// stats with tooMany > 0, and nil otherwise (all other errors are
+	// either caused by encoding or connection failures, or are
+	// immediately retryable).
+	stats := bulkResultStats{
+		acked:        1,
+		duplicates:   2,
+		fails:        3,
+		nonIndexable: 4,
+		deadLetter:   5,
+		tooMany:      1,
+	}
+
+	assert.Equal(t, errTooMany, publishResultForStats(stats), "publishResultForStats should return errTooMany if tooMany > 0")
+
+	stats.tooMany = 0
+	assert.Nil(t, publishResultForStats(stats), "publishResultForStats should return nil if tooMany == 0")
+}
+
 func BenchmarkCollectPublishFailsNone(b *testing.B) {
 	logger, err := logp.NewDevelopmentLogger("")
 	require.NoError(b, err)