diff --git a/docs/history/hatch.md b/docs/history/hatch.md
index 7e0c1d208..1b675ab8a 100644
--- a/docs/history/hatch.md
+++ b/docs/history/hatch.md
@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@ The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/),
 ***Fixed:***
 
 - The `fmt` command no longer hides the commands that are being executed
+- Add default timeout for network requests, useful when installing Python distributions
 
 ## [1.11.1](https://github.com/pypa/hatch/releases/tag/hatch-v1.11.1) - 2024-05-23 ## {: #hatch-v1.11.1 }
 
diff --git a/src/hatch/utils/network.py b/src/hatch/utils/network.py
index 70b9b901b..1bbb52ff4 100644
--- a/src/hatch/utils/network.py
+++ b/src/hatch/utils/network.py
@@ -12,6 +12,10 @@
 
 MINIMUM_SLEEP = 2
 MAXIMUM_SLEEP = 20
+# The timeout should be slightly larger than a multiple of 3,
+# which is the default TCP packet retransmission window. See:
+# https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2988
+DEFAULT_TIMEOUT = 10
 
 
 @contextmanager
@@ -34,6 +38,8 @@ def streaming_response(*args: Any, **kwargs: Any) -> Generator[httpx.Response, N
 
 
 def download_file(path: Path, *args: Any, **kwargs: Any) -> None:
+    kwargs.setdefault('timeout', DEFAULT_TIMEOUT)
+
     with path.open(mode='wb', buffering=0) as f, streaming_response('GET', *args, **kwargs) as response:
         for chunk in response.iter_bytes(16384):
             f.write(chunk)