diff --git a/src/bitcoin-cli.cpp b/src/bitcoin-cli.cpp
--- a/src/bitcoin-cli.cpp
+++ b/src/bitcoin-cli.cpp
@@ -383,9 +383,22 @@
     // Synchronously look up hostname
     raii_evhttp_connection evcon =
         obtain_evhttp_connection_base(base.get(), host, port);
-    evhttp_connection_set_timeout(
-        evcon.get(),
-        gArgs.GetArg("-rpcclienttimeout", DEFAULT_HTTP_CLIENT_TIMEOUT));
+
+    // Set connection timeout
+    {
+        const int timeout =
+            gArgs.GetArg("-rpcclienttimeout", DEFAULT_HTTP_CLIENT_TIMEOUT);
+        if (timeout > 0) {
+            evhttp_connection_set_timeout(evcon.get(), timeout);
+        } else {
+            // Indefinite request timeouts are not possible in libevent-http,
+            // so we set the timeout to a very long time period instead.
+
+            // Average length of year in Gregorian calendar
+            constexpr int YEAR_IN_SECONDS = 31556952;
+            evhttp_connection_set_timeout(evcon.get(), 5 * YEAR_IN_SECONDS);
+        }
+    }
 
     HTTPReply response;
     raii_evhttp_request req =