diff --git a/swh/loader/package/deposit/tests/test_deposit.py b/swh/loader/package/deposit/tests/test_deposit.py
--- a/swh/loader/package/deposit/tests/test_deposit.py
+++ b/swh/loader/package/deposit/tests/test_deposit.py
@@ -149,8 +149,8 @@
         "status": "failed",
         "status_detail": {
             "loading": [
-                "Failed to load branch HEAD for some-url-2: Fail to query "
-                "'https://deposit.softwareheritage.org/1/private/666/raw/'. Reason: 404"
+                "Failed to load branch HEAD for some-url-2: 404 Client Error: None "
+                "for url: https://deposit.softwareheritage.org/1/private/666/raw/"
             ]
         },
     }
diff --git a/swh/loader/package/tests/test_utils.py b/swh/loader/package/tests/test_utils.py
--- a/swh/loader/package/tests/test_utils.py
+++ b/swh/loader/package/tests/test_utils.py
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@
 from urllib.parse import quote
 
 import pytest
+from requests.exceptions import HTTPError
 
 from swh.loader.exception import NotFound
 import swh.loader.package
@@ -29,10 +30,10 @@
     status_code = 404
     requests_mock.get(url, status_code=status_code)
 
-    with pytest.raises(ValueError) as e:
+    with pytest.raises(HTTPError) as e:
         download(url, tmp_path)
 
-    assert e.value.args[0] == "Fail to query '%s'. Reason: %s" % (url, status_code)
+    assert e.value.args[0] == f"{status_code} Client Error: None for url: {url}"
 
 
 _filename = "requests-0.0.1.tar.gz"
@@ -234,3 +235,39 @@
         ("0.0.2", "something", "releases/0.0.2/something"),
     ]:
         assert release_name(version, filename) == expected_release
+
+
+@pytest.fixture(autouse=True)
+def mock_download_retry_sleep(mocker):
+    mocker.patch.object(download.retry, "sleep")
+
+
+def test_download_retry(mocker, requests_mock, tmp_path):
+    url = f"https://example.org/project/requests/files/{_filename}"
+
+    requests_mock.get(
+        url,
+        [
+            {"status_code": 429},
+            {"status_code": 429},
+            {
+                "text": _data,
+                "headers": {"content-length": str(len(_data))},
+                "status_code": 200,
+            },
+        ],
+    )
+
+    _check_download_ok(url, dest=str(tmp_path))
+
+
+def test_download_retry_reraise(mocker, requests_mock, tmp_path):
+    url = f"https://example.org/project/requests/files/{_filename}"
+
+    requests_mock.get(
+        url,
+        [{"status_code": 429}] * 5,
+    )
+
+    with pytest.raises(HTTPError):
+        _check_download_ok(url, dest=str(tmp_path))
diff --git a/swh/loader/package/utils.py b/swh/loader/package/utils.py
--- a/swh/loader/package/utils.py
+++ b/swh/loader/package/utils.py
@@ -14,6 +14,11 @@
 from urllib.request import urlopen
 
 import requests
+from requests.exceptions import HTTPError
+from tenacity import retry
+from tenacity.before_sleep import before_sleep_log
+from tenacity.stop import stop_after_attempt
+from tenacity.wait import wait_exponential
 
 from swh.loader.exception import NotFound
 from swh.loader.package import DEFAULT_PARAMS
@@ -63,6 +68,26 @@
     return fname
 
 
+def _retry_if_throttling(retry_state) -> bool:
+    """Custom tenacity retry predicate for handling HTTP responses with
+    status code 429 (too many requests).
+    """
+    attempt = retry_state.outcome
+    if attempt.failed:
+        exception = attempt.exception()
+        return (
+            isinstance(exception, HTTPError) and exception.response.status_code == 429
+        )
+    return False
+
+
+@retry(
+    retry=_retry_if_throttling,
+    wait=wait_exponential(exp_base=10),
+    stop=stop_after_attempt(max_attempt_number=5),
+    before_sleep=before_sleep_log(logger, logging.WARNING),
+    reraise=True,
+)
 def download(
     url: str,
     dest: str,
@@ -104,10 +129,7 @@
         response_data = itertools.takewhile(bool, chunks)
     else:
         response = requests.get(url, **params, timeout=timeout, stream=True)
-        if response.status_code != 200:
-            raise ValueError(
-                "Fail to query '%s'. Reason: %s" % (url, response.status_code)
-            )
+        response.raise_for_status()
         # update URL to response one as requests follow redirection by default
         # on GET requests
         url = response.url