diff --git a/ddtrace/tracer/transport.go b/ddtrace/tracer/transport.go
index 1046392dc9..8b8e237e55 100644
--- a/ddtrace/tracer/transport.go
+++ b/ddtrace/tracer/transport.go
@@ -127,10 +127,23 @@ func (t *httpTransport) sendStats(p *pb.ClientStatsPayload, tracerObfuscationVer
 	if err := msgp.Encode(&buf, p); err != nil {
 		return err
 	}
-	req, err := http.NewRequest("POST", t.statsURL, &buf)
+	body := buf.Bytes()
+
+	req, err := http.NewRequest("POST", t.statsURL, bytes.NewReader(body))
 	if err != nil {
 		return err
 	}
+
+	// by providing GetBody and a zero length slice for the Idempotency-Key
+	// http header, we get free retries in the face of network errors, such as
+	// when datadog-agent is much more aggressive about closing idle connections
+	// than we are
+	req.GetBody = func() (io.ReadCloser, error) {
+		return io.NopCloser(bytes.NewReader(body)), nil
+	}
+	req.ContentLength = int64(len(body))
+	req.Header["Idempotency-Key"] = []string{}
+
 	for header, value := range t.headers {
 		req.Header.Set(header, value)
 	}
diff --git a/ddtrace/tracer/transport_test.go b/ddtrace/tracer/transport_test.go
index 0bf5b67e9b..4a16041d3e 100644
--- a/ddtrace/tracer/transport_test.go
+++ b/ddtrace/tracer/transport_test.go
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@
 package tracer
 
 import (
+	"context"
 	"fmt"
 	"io"
 	"net"
@@ -509,3 +510,108 @@ func TestDefaultHeaders(t *testing.T) {
 	err = trc.config.transport.sendStats(&pb.ClientStatsPayload{}, 1)
 	assert.NoError(err)
 }
+
+// eofConn has tightly coupled semantics to how http.Transport uses a connection
+// namely, it permits returning an io.EOF from Read, *after* Write has returned.
+type eofConn struct {
+	rcalls int
+	wcalls int
+	ch     chan bool
+
+	// included to satisfy net.Conn but not all methods are implemented
+	net.Conn
+}
+
+func NewEOFConn(conn net.Conn, err error) (*eofConn, error) {
+	return &eofConn{
+		0, 0, make(chan bool, 0), conn,
+	}, err
+}
+
+func (c *eofConn) Read(p []byte) (int, error) {
+	c.rcalls++
+	if passthrough := <-c.ch; passthrough {
+		return c.Conn.Read(p)
+	}
+	return 0, io.EOF
+}
+
+func (c *eofConn) Write(p []byte) (int, error) {
+	c.wcalls++
+	n, err := c.Conn.Write(p)
+	if c.wcalls == 2 {
+		c.ch <- false
+	} else {
+		c.ch <- true
+	}
+	return n, err
+}
+
+// TestSendStatsNetworkErrorRetry ensures that httpTransport.sendStats will
+// retry in the face of an awful edge case race condition. datadog-agent has an
+// effective idle timeout of 5 seconds, and the tracer's default is 90 seconds.
+// The agent can close the `net.Conn` `httpTransport` is using _while_ the
+// request is being sent, resulting in a `(net.Conn).Read` getting `io.EOF`.
+// `http.Transport` will retry idempotent requests when that network error
+// occurs, but `sendStats` was not considered idempotent until this
+// commit/test/PR.
+func TestSendStatsNetworkErrorRetry(t *testing.T) {
+	// disable instrumentation telemetry to prevent flaky number of requests
+	t.Setenv("DD_INSTRUMENTATION_TELEMETRY_ENABLED", "false")
+	t.Setenv("DD_TRACE_STARTUP_LOGS", "0")
+	assert := assert.New(t)
+
+	var handlerHits int
+	srv := httptest.NewServer(http.HandlerFunc(func(rw http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
+		handlerHits++
+		if r.Method == http.MethodGet {
+			return
+		}
+		// make sure we get the Content-Length header on the PUT
+		cl := r.Header.Get("Content-Length")
+		assert.NotZero(cl)
+		rw.WriteHeader(http.StatusOK)
+		_, _ = rw.Write([]byte("ok"))
+	}))
+	defer srv.Close()
+
+	u, err := url.Parse(srv.URL)
+	assert.NoError(err)
+	c := &http.Client{}
+	rt := wrapRecordingRoundTripper(c)
+
+	var d net.Dialer
+	var conns []*eofConn
+	var transportDials int
+
+	rt.rt = &http.Transport{
+		DialContext: func(ctx context.Context, network, addr string) (net.Conn, error) {
+			transportDials++
+			con, err := NewEOFConn(d.DialContext(ctx, network, addr))
+			conns = append(conns, con)
+			return con, err
+		},
+	}
+
+	trc, err := newTracer(WithAgentTimeout(2), WithAgentAddr(u.Host), WithHTTPClient(c))
+	defer trc.Stop()
+	assert.NoError(err)
+
+	err = trc.config.transport.sendStats(&pb.ClientStatsPayload{}, 1)
+	assert.NoError(err)
+	assert.Len(rt.reqs, 2)
+
+	// we expect to use two connections
+	assert.Len(conns, 2)
+	// first connection gets used twice, the second time's failures result in
+	// the second connection being established
+	assert.Equal(2, conns[0].rcalls)
+	assert.Equal(2, conns[0].wcalls)
+	assert.Equal(1, conns[1].rcalls)
+	assert.Equal(1, conns[1].wcalls)
+
+	assert.Contains(rt.reqs[0].URL.Path, "/info")
+	assert.Contains(rt.reqs[1].URL.Path, "/stats")
+	assert.Equal(handlerHits, 3) // we expect more hits than requests due to idempotency retries
+	assert.Equal(transportDials, 2)
+}