diff --git a/sdks/python/apache_beam/programming_guide_test.py b/sdks/python/apache_beam/programming_guide_test.py
index 28d4bddd798e..1ac777bbb863 100644
--- a/sdks/python/apache_beam/programming_guide_test.py
+++ b/sdks/python/apache_beam/programming_guide_test.py
@@ -1,3 +1,20 @@
+#
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+# contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+# this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+# The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+# (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+# the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+#
+
 import unittest
 
 import apache_beam as beam
diff --git a/sdks/python/setup.py b/sdks/python/setup.py
index 4ad898d4b7cb..719d188ed266 100644
--- a/sdks/python/setup.py
+++ b/sdks/python/setup.py
@@ -166,7 +166,11 @@ def cythonize(*args, **kwargs):
     'embeddings',
     'onnxruntime',
     'langchain',
-    'sentence-transformers',
+    # sentence-transformers 3.0+ requires transformers 4.34+
+    # which uses Python 3.10+ union syntax
+    # Use 2.x versions for Python 3.9 compatibility with transformers <4.55.0
+    'sentence-transformers>=2.2.2,<3.0.0; python_version < "3.10"',
+    'sentence-transformers>=2.2.2; python_version >= "3.10"',
     'skl2onnx',
     'pillow',
     'pyod',
@@ -581,7 +585,11 @@ def get_portability_package_data():
           'torch': ['torch>=1.9.0,<2.8.0'],
           'tensorflow': ['tensorflow>=2.12rc1,<2.21'],
           'transformers': [
-              'transformers>=4.28.0,<4.56.0',
+              # Restrict transformers to <4.55.0 for Python 3.9 compatibility
+              # Versions 4.55.0+ use Python 3.10+ union syntax (int | None)
+              # which causes TypeError on Python 3.9
+              'transformers>=4.28.0,<4.55.0; python_version < "3.10"',
+              'transformers>=4.28.0,<4.56.0; python_version >= "3.10"',
               'tensorflow>=2.12.0',
               'torch>=1.9.0'
           ],