diff --git a/runners/google-cloud-dataflow-java/src/main/java/org/apache/beam/runners/dataflow/DataflowRunner.java b/runners/google-cloud-dataflow-java/src/main/java/org/apache/beam/runners/dataflow/DataflowRunner.java
index 1b03cc10351e..97583d76d09f 100644
--- a/runners/google-cloud-dataflow-java/src/main/java/org/apache/beam/runners/dataflow/DataflowRunner.java
+++ b/runners/google-cloud-dataflow-java/src/main/java/org/apache/beam/runners/dataflow/DataflowRunner.java
@@ -1592,7 +1592,9 @@ public DataflowPipelineJob run(Pipeline pipeline) {
       String fileLocation =
           firstNonNull(options.getTemplateLocation(), options.getDataflowJobFile());
       checkArgument(
-          fileLocation.startsWith("/") || fileLocation.startsWith("gs://"),
+          fileLocation.startsWith("/")
+              || new File(fileLocation).isAbsolute()
+              || fileLocation.startsWith("gs://"),
           "Location must be local or on Cloud Storage, got %s.",
           fileLocation);