diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 07e1908824..09e5def90b 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -35,19 +35,19 @@ Parquet-MR uses Maven to build and depends on the thrift compiler (protoc is now
 To build and install the thrift compiler, run:
 
 ```
-wget -nv http://archive.apache.org/dist/thrift/0.9.3/thrift-0.9.3.tar.gz
-tar xzf thrift-0.9.3.tar.gz
-cd thrift-0.9.3
+wget -nv http://archive.apache.org/dist/thrift/0.12.0/thrift-0.12.0.tar.gz
+tar xzf thrift-0.12.0.tar.gz
+cd thrift-0.12.0
 chmod +x ./configure
 ./configure --disable-gen-erl --disable-gen-hs --without-ruby --without-haskell --without-erlang --without-php --without-nodejs
 sudo make install
 ```
 
-If you're on OSX and use homebrew, you can instead install Thrift 0.9.x with `brew` and ensure that it comes first in your `PATH`.
+If you're on OSX and use homebrew, you can instead install Thrift 0.12.0 with `brew` and ensure that it comes first in your `PATH`.
 
 ```
-brew install thrift@0.9
-export PATH="/usr/local/opt/thrift@0.9/bin:$PATH"
+brew install thrift@0.12.0
+export PATH="/usr/local/opt/thrift@0.12.0/bin:$PATH"
 ```
 
 ### Build Parquet with Maven
diff --git a/dev/travis-before_install.sh b/dev/travis-before_install.sh
index 5161f223f4..67fee74fd0 100644
--- a/dev/travis-before_install.sh
+++ b/dev/travis-before_install.sh
@@ -19,6 +19,8 @@
 # This script gets invoked by .travis.yml in the before_install step
 ################################################################################
 
+export THIFT_VERSION=0.12.0
+
 set -e
 date
 sudo apt-get update -qq
@@ -27,9 +29,9 @@ sudo apt-get install -qq build-essential pv autoconf automake libtool curl make
    libevent-dev automake libtool flex bison pkg-config g++ libssl-dev xmlstarlet
 date
 pwd
-wget -nv http://archive.apache.org/dist/thrift/0.9.3/thrift-0.9.3.tar.gz
-tar zxf thrift-0.9.3.tar.gz
-cd thrift-0.9.3
+wget -nv http://archive.apache.org/dist/thrift/${THIFT_VERSION}/thrift-${THIFT_VERSION}.tar.gz
+tar zxf thrift-${THIFT_VERSION}.tar.gz
+cd thrift-${THIFT_VERSION}
 chmod +x ./configure
 ./configure --disable-gen-erl --disable-gen-hs --without-ruby --without-haskell --without-erlang --without-php --without-nodejs
 sudo make install
diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index d1ce7dd4e0..2ff67de1e2 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -92,8 +92,8 @@
     <pig.version>0.16.0</pig.version>
     <pig.classifier>h2</pig.classifier>
     <thrift-maven-plugin.version>0.10.0</thrift-maven-plugin.version>
-    <thrift.version>0.9.3</thrift.version>
-    <format.thrift.version>0.9.3</format.thrift.version>
+    <thrift.version>0.12.0</thrift.version>
+    <format.thrift.version>0.12.0</format.thrift.version>
     <fastutil.version>7.0.13</fastutil.version>
     <semver.api.version>0.9.33</semver.api.version>
     <slf4j.version>1.7.22</slf4j.version>