diff --git a/lib/agent.js b/lib/agent.js
index b30af6867be..2c2f4afe577 100644
--- a/lib/agent.js
+++ b/lib/agent.js
@@ -273,13 +273,11 @@ Agent.prototype.captureError = function (err, opts, cb) {
     }
 
     if (req) {
-      var config = agent._conf.captureBody
-      var captureBody = config === 'errors' || config === 'all'
-      error.context.request = parsers.getContextFromRequest(req, captureBody)
+      error.context.request = parsers.getContextFromRequest(req, agent._conf, 'errors')
     }
 
     if (res) {
-      error.context.response = parsers.getContextFromResponse(res, true)
+      error.context.response = parsers.getContextFromResponse(res, agent._conf, true)
     }
 
     if (captureLocation) {
diff --git a/lib/config.js b/lib/config.js
index 52b785c9e4a..54053bfcff9 100644
--- a/lib/config.js
+++ b/lib/config.js
@@ -57,7 +57,8 @@ var DEFAULTS = {
   transactionMaxSpans: 500,
   transactionSampleRate: 1.0,
   serverTimeout: '30s',
-  disableInstrumentations: []
+  disableInstrumentations: [],
+  captureHeaders: true
 }
 
 var ENV_TABLE = {
@@ -92,7 +93,8 @@ var ENV_TABLE = {
   transactionSampleRate: 'ELASTIC_APM_TRANSACTION_SAMPLE_RATE',
   serverTimeout: 'ELASTIC_APM_SERVER_TIMEOUT',
   disableInstrumentations: 'ELASTIC_APM_DISABLE_INSTRUMENTATIONS',
-  payloadLogFile: 'ELASTIC_APM_PAYLOAD_LOG_FILE'
+  payloadLogFile: 'ELASTIC_APM_PAYLOAD_LOG_FILE',
+  captureHeaders: 'ELASTIC_APM_CAPTURE_HEADERS'
 }
 
 var BOOL_OPTS = [
@@ -103,7 +105,8 @@ var BOOL_OPTS = [
   'captureSpanStackTraces',
   'errorOnAbortedRequests',
   'instrument',
-  'asyncHooks'
+  'asyncHooks',
+  'captureHeaders'
 ]
 
 var NUM_OPTS = [
diff --git a/lib/instrumentation/transaction.js b/lib/instrumentation/transaction.js
index d36cd144a0f..0f383140826 100644
--- a/lib/instrumentation/transaction.js
+++ b/lib/instrumentation/transaction.js
@@ -129,13 +129,12 @@ Transaction.prototype.toJSON = function () {
       payload.span_count.dropped = this._droppedSpans
     }
 
+    var conf = this._agent._conf
     if (this.req) {
-      var config = this._agent._conf.captureBody
-      var captureBody = config === 'transactions' || config === 'all'
-      payload.context.request = parsers.getContextFromRequest(this.req, captureBody)
+      payload.context.request = parsers.getContextFromRequest(this.req, conf, 'transactions')
     }
     if (this.res) {
-      payload.context.response = parsers.getContextFromResponse(this.res)
+      payload.context.response = parsers.getContextFromResponse(this.res, conf)
     }
   }
 
diff --git a/lib/parsers.js b/lib/parsers.js
index e383a0173d4..7afdf767ba5 100644
--- a/lib/parsers.js
+++ b/lib/parsers.js
@@ -88,7 +88,9 @@ exports.parseError = function (err, agent, cb) {
   })
 }
 
-exports.getContextFromRequest = function (req, captureBody) {
+exports.getContextFromRequest = function (req, conf, type) {
+  var captureBody = conf.captureBody === type || conf.captureBody === 'all'
+
   var context = {
     http_version: req.httpVersion,
     method: req.method,
@@ -96,8 +98,11 @@ exports.getContextFromRequest = function (req, captureBody) {
     socket: {
       remote_address: req.socket.remoteAddress,
       encrypted: !!req.socket.encrypted
-    },
-    headers: Object.assign({}, req.headers)
+    }
+  }
+
+  if (conf.captureHeaders) {
+    context.headers = Object.assign({}, req.headers)
   }
 
   var contentLength = parseInt(req.headers['content-length'], 10)
@@ -123,10 +128,13 @@ exports.getContextFromRequest = function (req, captureBody) {
   return context
 }
 
-exports.getContextFromResponse = function (res, isError) {
+exports.getContextFromResponse = function (res, conf, isError) {
   var context = {
-    status_code: res.statusCode,
-    headers: res.headers || httpHeaders(res, true)
+    status_code: res.statusCode
+  }
+
+  if (conf.captureHeaders) {
+    context.headers = res.headers || httpHeaders(res, true)
   }
 
   if (isError) {
diff --git a/test/instrumentation/_agent.js b/test/instrumentation/_agent.js
index 78a3c116ae2..8a38cfb2be0 100644
--- a/test/instrumentation/_agent.js
+++ b/test/instrumentation/_agent.js
@@ -26,7 +26,8 @@ module.exports = function mockAgent (expected, cb) {
       ignoreUserAgentStr: [],
       ignoreUserAgentRegExp: [],
       transactionSampleRate: 1.0,
-      disableInstrumentations: []
+      disableInstrumentations: [],
+      captureHeaders: true
     },
     _errorFilters: new Filters(),
     _transactionFilters: new Filters(),
diff --git a/test/parsers.js b/test/parsers.js
index 318591173a5..02e58bee23d 100644
--- a/test/parsers.js
+++ b/test/parsers.js
@@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ test('#getContextFromResponse()', function (t) {
 
       res.sendDate = false
 
-      var context = parsers.getContextFromResponse(res, true)
+      var context = parsers.getContextFromResponse(res, { captureHeaders: true }, true)
       t.deepEqual(context, {
         status_code: 200,
         headers: {},
@@ -72,7 +72,7 @@ test('#getContextFromResponse()', function (t) {
       res.sendDate = false
       res.write('foo')
 
-      var context = parsers.getContextFromResponse(res, true)
+      var context = parsers.getContextFromResponse(res, { captureHeaders: true }, true)
       t.deepEqual(context, {
         status_code: 200,
         headers: { connection: 'close', 'transfer-encoding': 'chunked' },
@@ -87,7 +87,7 @@ test('#getContextFromResponse()', function (t) {
   t.test('for error (request finished)', function (t) {
     onRequest(function (req, res) {
       req.on('end', function () {
-        var context = parsers.getContextFromResponse(res, true)
+        var context = parsers.getContextFromResponse(res, { captureHeaders: true }, true)
         t.deepEqual(context, {
           status_code: 200,
           headers: { connection: 'close', 'content-length': '0' },
@@ -106,7 +106,7 @@ test('#getContextFromResponse()', function (t) {
   t.test('for transaction', function (t) {
     onRequest(function (req, res) {
       req.on('end', function () {
-        var context = parsers.getContextFromResponse(res, false)
+        var context = parsers.getContextFromResponse(res, { captureHeaders: true }, false)
         t.deepEqual(context, {
           status_code: 200,
           headers: { connection: 'close', 'content-length': '0' }
@@ -121,7 +121,8 @@ test('#getContextFromResponse()', function (t) {
 
 test('#getContextFromRequest()', function (t) {
   t.test('should parse a request object', function (t) {
-    var parsed = parsers.getContextFromRequest(getMockReq())
+    var conf = { captureHeaders: true, captureBody: 'off' }
+    var parsed = parsers.getContextFromRequest(getMockReq(), conf)
     t.deepEqual(parsed, {
       http_version: '1.1',
       method: 'GET',
@@ -146,9 +147,10 @@ test('#getContextFromRequest()', function (t) {
   })
 
   t.test('full URI', function (t) {
+    var conf = { captureHeaders: true, captureBody: 'off' }
     var req = getMockReq()
     req.url = 'https://www.example.com:8080/some/path?key=value'
-    var parsed = parsers.getContextFromRequest(req)
+    var parsed = parsers.getContextFromRequest(req, conf)
     t.deepEqual(parsed.url, {
       pathname: '/some/path',
       search: '?key=value',
@@ -162,9 +164,10 @@ test('#getContextFromRequest()', function (t) {
   })
 
   t.test('port in host header', function (t) {
+    var conf = { captureHeaders: true, captureBody: 'off' }
     var req = getMockReq()
     req.headers.host = 'example.com:8080'
-    var parsed = parsers.getContextFromRequest(req)
+    var parsed = parsers.getContextFromRequest(req, conf)
     t.deepEqual(parsed.url, {
       hostname: 'example.com',
       port: 8080,
@@ -178,9 +181,10 @@ test('#getContextFromRequest()', function (t) {
   })
 
   t.test('empty query string', function (t) {
+    var conf = { captureHeaders: true, captureBody: 'off' }
     var req = getMockReq()
     req.url = '/some/path?'
-    var parsed = parsers.getContextFromRequest(req)
+    var parsed = parsers.getContextFromRequest(req, conf)
     t.deepEqual(parsed.url, {
       hostname: 'example.com',
       pathname: '/some/path',
@@ -193,43 +197,47 @@ test('#getContextFromRequest()', function (t) {
   })
 
   t.test('should slice too large body\'s', function (t) {
+    var conf = { captureHeaders: true, captureBody: 'all' }
     var req = getMockReq()
     req.body = ''
     for (var n = 0; n < parsers._MAX_HTTP_BODY_CHARS + 10; n++) {
       req.body += 'x'
     }
     req.headers['content-length'] = String(req.body.length)
-    var parsed = parsers.getContextFromRequest(req, true)
+    var parsed = parsers.getContextFromRequest(req, conf)
     t.equal(parsed.body.length, parsers._MAX_HTTP_BODY_CHARS)
     t.end()
   })
 
   t.test('should not log body if opts.body is false', function (t) {
+    var conf = { captureHeaders: true, captureBody: 'off' }
     var req = getMockReq()
     req.body = 'secret stuff'
     req.headers['content-length'] = String(req.body.length)
-    var parsed = parsers.getContextFromRequest(req, false)
+    var parsed = parsers.getContextFromRequest(req, conf)
     t.equal(parsed.body, '[REDACTED]')
     t.end()
   })
 
   t.test('body is object', function (t) {
+    var conf = { captureHeaders: true, captureBody: 'all' }
     var req = getMockReq()
     req.body = { foo: 42 }
     req.headers['content-length'] = JSON.stringify(req.body).length
-    var parsed = parsers.getContextFromRequest(req, true)
+    var parsed = parsers.getContextFromRequest(req, conf)
     t.deepEqual(parsed.body, { foo: 42 })
     t.end()
   })
 
   t.test('body is object, but too large', function (t) {
+    var conf = { captureHeaders: true, captureBody: 'all' }
     var req = getMockReq()
     req.body = { foo: '' }
     for (var n = 0; n < parsers._MAX_HTTP_BODY_CHARS + 10; n++) {
       req.body.foo += 'x'
     }
     req.headers['content-length'] = JSON.stringify(req.body).length
-    var parsed = parsers.getContextFromRequest(req, true)
+    var parsed = parsers.getContextFromRequest(req, conf)
     t.equal(typeof parsed.body, 'string')
     t.equal(parsed.body.length, parsers._MAX_HTTP_BODY_CHARS)
     t.equal(parsed.body.slice(0, 10), '{"foo":"xx')
@@ -237,11 +245,12 @@ test('#getContextFromRequest()', function (t) {
   })
 
   t.test('body is object, but not safe to stringify', function (t) {
+    var conf = { captureHeaders: true, captureBody: 'all' }
     var req = getMockReq()
     req.body = { foo: 42 }
     req.body.bar = req.body
     req.headers['transfer-encoding'] = 'chunked'
-    var parsed = parsers.getContextFromRequest(req, true)
+    var parsed = parsers.getContextFromRequest(req, conf)
     t.deepEqual(parsed.body, req.body)
     t.end()
   })