diff --git a/gradle/spotbugs-exclude.xml b/gradle/spotbugs-exclude.xml
index f02f9e04bb3c6..87d92bacc757f 100644
--- a/gradle/spotbugs-exclude.xml
+++ b/gradle/spotbugs-exclude.xml
@@ -599,7 +599,6 @@ For a detailed description of spotbugs bug categories, see https://spotbugs.read
             <Class name="org.apache.kafka.streams.processor.internals.InternalTopologyBuilder"/>
             <Class name="org.apache.kafka.streams.processor.internals.StreamsPartitionAssignor"/>
             <Class name="org.apache.kafka.streams.processor.internals.StreamsProducer"/>
-            <Class name="org.apache.kafka.streams.processor.internals.TaskManager"/>
             <Class name="org.apache.kafka.streams.state.internals.AbstractRocksDBSegmentedBytesStore"/>
             <Class name="org.apache.kafka.streams.state.internals.InMemoryTimeOrderedKeyValueChangeBuffer"/>
             <Class name="org.apache.kafka.streams.state.internals.RocksDBStore"/>
@@ -638,6 +637,13 @@ For a detailed description of spotbugs bug categories, see https://spotbugs.read
         <Bug pattern="AT_STALE_THREAD_WRITE_OF_PRIMITIVE"/>
     </Match>
 
+    <Match>
+        <!-- KAFKA-20404: rebalanceInProgress is written from the ConsumerRebalanceListener callbacks (handleRebalanceStart / handleRebalanceComplete) and read from StreamThread.runLoop and TaskManager's commit paths; all of these run on the StreamThread, so a stale cross-thread write cannot occur. -->
+        <Class name="org.apache.kafka.streams.processor.internals.TaskManager"/>
+        <Field name="rebalanceInProgress"/>
+        <Bug pattern="AT_STALE_THREAD_WRITE_OF_PRIMITIVE"/>
+    </Match>
+
     <Match>
         <!-- New warning type added when we upgraded from spotbugs 4.8.6 to 4.9.4.
         These are possibly real bugs, and have not been evaluated, they were just bulk excluded to unblock upgrading Spotbugs.