diff --git a/fit/Couchbase.Analytics.Performer/Internal/Utils/ClusterNewInstanceRequestExtensions.cs b/fit/Couchbase.Analytics.Performer/Internal/Utils/ClusterNewInstanceRequestExtensions.cs
index c6773a0..c1be18b 100644
--- a/fit/Couchbase.Analytics.Performer/Internal/Utils/ClusterNewInstanceRequestExtensions.cs
+++ b/fit/Couchbase.Analytics.Performer/Internal/Utils/ClusterNewInstanceRequestExtensions.cs
@@ -82,7 +82,10 @@ private static TimeoutOptions ToCore(this ClusterNewInstanceRequest.Types.Option
         {
             timeoutOptions = timeoutOptions.WithQueryTimeout(protoTimeout.QueryTimeout.ToTimeSpan());
         }
-        // handle_timeout is not supported by the .NET SDK; intentionally ignored.
+        if (protoTimeout.HandleTimeout is not null)
+        {
+            timeoutOptions = timeoutOptions.WithHandleRequestTimeout(protoTimeout.HandleTimeout.ToTimeSpan());
+        }
         return timeoutOptions;
     }
 
diff --git a/src/Couchbase.Analytics/Internal/AnalyticsService.cs b/src/Couchbase.Analytics/Internal/AnalyticsService.cs
index 0df8a98..1eed903 100644
--- a/src/Couchbase.Analytics/Internal/AnalyticsService.cs
+++ b/src/Couchbase.Analytics/Internal/AnalyticsService.cs
@@ -214,6 +214,8 @@ public async Task<QueryHandle> StartQueryAsync(string statement, StartQueryOptio
     {
         var stopwatch = LightweightStopwatch.StartNew();
         var queryTimeout = options.QueryTimeout ?? _clusterOptions.TimeoutOptions.QueryTimeout;
+        // Ensure the resolved query timeout is serialized into the request body.
+        options = options with { QueryTimeout = queryTimeout };
         var requestTimeout = _clusterOptions.TimeoutOptions.DispatchTimeout;
 
         var errorContext = new ErrorContext(options.ClientContextId, stopwatch, queryTimeout);
@@ -262,24 +264,29 @@ public async Task<QueryHandle> StartQueryAsync(string statement, StartQueryOptio
                         ex, errorContext);
                 }
 
-                if (!response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
+                // Errors may be present alongside a 2xx response (e.g. HTTP 202 with status:"fatal"
+                // and a retriable error array). Inspect them before any other branching so the retry
+                // logic applies uniformly to success and failure HTTP codes.
+                QueryError[]? errors = null;
+                if (root.TryGetProperty("errors", out var errorsElement) && errorsElement.ValueKind == JsonValueKind.Array)
                 {
-                    // Try to parse errors from the response
-                    if (root.TryGetProperty("errors", out var errorsElement))
-                    {
-                        var errors = JsonSerializer.Deserialize<QueryError[]>(errorsElement.GetRawText())
-                                     ?? Array.Empty<QueryError>();
-
-                        if (AnalyticsErrorMapper.AreErrorsRetriable(errors))
-                        {
-                            lastException = AnalyticsErrorMapper.MapServiceErrors(errors, errorContext);
-                            await RetryUtils.BackoffAsync(attempt, cancellationToken).ConfigureAwait(false);
-                            continue;
-                        }
+                    errors = JsonSerializer.Deserialize<QueryError[]>(errorsElement.GetRawText());
+                }
 
-                        throw AnalyticsErrorMapper.MapServiceErrors(errors, errorContext);
+                if (errors is { Length: > 0 })
+                {
+                    if (AnalyticsErrorMapper.AreErrorsRetriable(errors))
+                    {
+                        lastException = AnalyticsErrorMapper.MapServiceErrors(errors, errorContext);
+                        await RetryUtils.BackoffAsync(attempt, cancellationToken).ConfigureAwait(false);
+                        continue;
                     }
 
+                    throw AnalyticsErrorMapper.MapServiceErrors(errors, errorContext);
+                }
+
+                if (!response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
+                {
                     // 503 is retriable
                     if (response.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.ServiceUnavailable)
                     {
@@ -339,7 +346,7 @@ public async Task<QueryHandle> StartQueryAsync(string statement, StartQueryOptio
 
     public async Task<QueryStatus> FetchStatusAsync(QueryHandle handle, FetchStatusOptions options, CancellationToken cancellationToken = default)
     {
-        var timeout = _clusterOptions.TimeoutOptions.DispatchTimeout;
+        var timeout = _clusterOptions.TimeoutOptions.HandleRequestTimeout;
         using var httpClient = CreateHttpClient(timeout);
 
         var statusUri = Uri.TryCreate(handle.Handle, UriKind.Absolute, out var absUri) && (absUri.Scheme == Uri.UriSchemeHttp || absUri.Scheme == Uri.UriSchemeHttps)
@@ -456,7 +463,7 @@ public async Task<QueryStatus> FetchStatusAsync(QueryHandle handle, FetchStatusO
 
     public async Task<IQueryResult> FetchResultsAsync(string requestId, string handlePath, FetchResultsOptions options, CancellationToken cancellationToken = default)
     {
-        var timeout = _clusterOptions.TimeoutOptions.DispatchTimeout;
+        var timeout = _clusterOptions.TimeoutOptions.HandleRequestTimeout;
         var httpClient = CreateHttpClient(timeout);
         var deserializer = options.Deserializer ?? _clusterOptions.Deserializer;
 
@@ -505,7 +512,7 @@ public async Task<IQueryResult> FetchResultsAsync(string requestId, string handl
 
     public async Task DiscardResultsAsync(string requestId, string handlePath, DiscardResultsOptions options, CancellationToken cancellationToken = default)
     {
-        var timeout = _clusterOptions.TimeoutOptions.DispatchTimeout;
+        var timeout = _clusterOptions.TimeoutOptions.HandleRequestTimeout;
         using var httpClient = CreateHttpClient(timeout);
 
         var resultUri = Uri.TryCreate(handlePath, UriKind.Absolute, out var absUri) && (absUri.Scheme == Uri.UriSchemeHttp || absUri.Scheme == Uri.UriSchemeHttps)
@@ -543,7 +550,7 @@ public async Task DiscardResultsAsync(string requestId, string handlePath, Disca
 
     public async Task CancelQueryAsync(string requestId, CancelOptions options, CancellationToken cancellationToken = default)
     {
-        var timeout = _clusterOptions.TimeoutOptions.DispatchTimeout;
+        var timeout = _clusterOptions.TimeoutOptions.HandleRequestTimeout;
         using var httpClient = CreateHttpClient(timeout);
 
         var cancelUri = new Uri(_baseUri, "api/v1/active_requests");
@@ -658,4 +665,4 @@ private static Exception ThrowTooManyRetries(ErrorContext errorContext)
     private static partial void LogCancelQueryResponse(ILogger logger, Redacted<string> requestId, int statusCode);
 
     #endregion
-}
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/src/Couchbase.Analytics/Options/TimeoutOptions.cs b/src/Couchbase.Analytics/Options/TimeoutOptions.cs
index f5a46bf..0e7e2eb 100644
--- a/src/Couchbase.Analytics/Options/TimeoutOptions.cs
+++ b/src/Couchbase.Analytics/Options/TimeoutOptions.cs
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ public record TimeoutOptions
     internal TimeSpan ConnectTimeout = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10);
     internal TimeSpan DispatchTimeout = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(30);
     internal TimeSpan QueryTimeout = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(10);
+    internal TimeSpan HandleRequestTimeout = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10);
 
     /// <summary>
     /// Socket connection timeout, or more broadly the timeout
@@ -52,7 +53,7 @@ public TimeoutOptions WithDispatchTimeout(TimeSpan dispatchTimeout)
     }
 
     /// <summary>
-    /// Columnar query timeout.
+    /// Cluster-level query timeout. Can be overriden with <see cref="QueryOptions"/>'s Timeout.
     /// <remarks>The default is 10m.</remarks>
     /// </summary>
     public TimeoutOptions WithQueryTimeout(TimeSpan queryTimeout)
@@ -60,4 +61,15 @@ public TimeoutOptions WithQueryTimeout(TimeSpan queryTimeout)
         QueryTimeout = queryTimeout;
         return this;
     }
-}
+
+    /// <summary>
+    /// Per-request timeout for async query handle operations
+    /// (FetchStatus, FetchResults, DiscardResults, CancelHandle).
+    /// <remarks>The default is 10s.</remarks>
+    /// </summary>
+    public TimeoutOptions WithHandleRequestTimeout(TimeSpan handleTimeout)
+    {
+        HandleRequestTimeout = handleTimeout;
+        return this;
+    }
+}
\ No newline at end of file