diff --git a/mlflow/store/artifact/optimized_s3_artifact_repo.py b/mlflow/store/artifact/optimized_s3_artifact_repo.py
index edde49a1ad593..40a4ee7c87302 100644
--- a/mlflow/store/artifact/optimized_s3_artifact_repo.py
+++ b/mlflow/store/artifact/optimized_s3_artifact_repo.py
@@ -55,7 +55,8 @@ def __init__(
         self._region_name = self._get_region_name()
 
     def _get_region_name(self):
-        # note: s3 client enforces path addressing style for get_bucket_location
+        from botocore.exceptions import ClientError
+
         temp_client = _get_s3_client(
             addressing_style="path",
             access_key_id=self._access_key_id,
@@ -63,7 +64,10 @@ def _get_region_name(self):
             session_token=self._session_token,
             s3_endpoint_url=self._s3_endpoint_url,
         )
-        return temp_client.get_bucket_location(Bucket=self.bucket)["LocationConstraint"]
+        try:
+            return temp_client.head_bucket(Bucket=self.bucket)["BucketRegion"]
+        except ClientError as error:
+            return error.response["ResponseMetadata"]["HTTPHeaders"]["x-amz-bucket-region"]
 
     def _get_s3_client(self):
         return _get_s3_client(
diff --git a/requirements/test-requirements.txt b/requirements/test-requirements.txt
index aee905302b1ae..344f04698758d 100644
--- a/requirements/test-requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements/test-requirements.txt
@@ -45,4 +45,6 @@ openai<1.0
 # Required for showing pytest stats
 psutil
 # SQLAlchemy == 2.0.25 requires typing_extensions >= 4.6.0
-typing_extensions>=4.6.0
\ No newline at end of file
+typing_extensions>=4.6.0
+# Required for importing boto3 ClientError directly for testing
+botocore>=1.34
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 69238ee7d7f6b..c37b1c2e05808 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -146,6 +146,7 @@ def run(self):
             "requests-auth-aws-sigv4",
             # Required to log artifacts and models to AWS S3 artifact locations
             "boto3",
+            "botocore",
             # Required to log artifacts and models to GCS artifact locations
             "google-cloud-storage>=1.30.0",
             "azureml-core>=1.2.0",
@@ -169,6 +170,7 @@ def run(self):
             "azure-storage-file-datalake>12",
             "google-cloud-storage>=1.30.0",
             "boto3>1",
+            "botocore>1.34",
         ],
         "gateway": GATEWAY_REQUIREMENTS,
         "genai": GATEWAY_REQUIREMENTS,
diff --git a/tests/store/artifact/test_optimized_s3_artifact_repo.py b/tests/store/artifact/test_optimized_s3_artifact_repo.py
index 2feea07307048..bf7416ef0a7d2 100644
--- a/tests/store/artifact/test_optimized_s3_artifact_repo.py
+++ b/tests/store/artifact/test_optimized_s3_artifact_repo.py
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ def test_get_s3_client_hits_cache(s3_artifact_root, monkeypatch):
     with mock.patch("boto3.client") as mock_get_s3_client:
         s3_client_mock = mock.Mock()
         mock_get_s3_client.return_value = s3_client_mock
-        s3_client_mock.get_bucket_location.return_value = {"LocationConstraint": "us-west-2"}
+        s3_client_mock.head_bucket.return_value = {"BucketRegion": "us-west-2"}
 
         # pylint: disable=no-value-for-parameter
         repo = OptimizedS3ArtifactRepository(posixpath.join(s3_artifact_root, "some/path"))
@@ -98,12 +98,27 @@ def test_get_s3_client_verify_param_set_correctly(
         )
 
 
-def test_get_s3_client_region_name_set_correctly(s3_artifact_root):
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("client_throws", [True, False])
+def test_get_s3_client_region_name_set_correctly(s3_artifact_root, client_throws):
     region_name = "us_random_region_42"
     with mock.patch("boto3.client") as mock_get_s3_client:
+        from botocore.exceptions import ClientError
+
         s3_client_mock = mock.Mock()
         mock_get_s3_client.return_value = s3_client_mock
-        s3_client_mock.get_bucket_location.return_value = {"LocationConstraint": region_name}
+        if client_throws:
+            error = ClientError(
+                {
+                    "Error": {"Code": "403", "Message": "Forbidden"},
+                    "ResponseMetadata": {
+                        "HTTPHeaders": {"x-amz-bucket-region": region_name},
+                    },
+                },
+                "head_bucket",
+            )
+            s3_client_mock.head_bucket.side_effect = error
+        else:
+            s3_client_mock.head_bucket.return_value = {"BucketRegion": region_name}
 
         repo = OptimizedS3ArtifactRepository(posixpath.join(s3_artifact_root, "some/path"))
         repo._get_s3_client()