diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-annotations/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/classification/InterfaceAudience.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-annotations/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/classification/InterfaceAudience.java
index cd62a9469c..04d5511359 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-annotations/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/classification/InterfaceAudience.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-annotations/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/classification/InterfaceAudience.java
@@ -18,6 +18,8 @@
 package org.apache.hadoop.classification;
 
 import java.lang.annotation.Documented;
+import java.lang.annotation.Retention;
+import java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy;
 
 /**
  * Annotation to inform users of a package, class or method's intended audience.
@@ -46,20 +48,26 @@ public class InterfaceAudience {
   /**
    * Intended for use by any project or application.
    */
-  @Documented public @interface Public {};
+  @Documented
+  @Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
+  public @interface Public {};
   
   /**
    * Intended only for the project(s) specified in the annotation.
    * For example, "Common", "HDFS", "MapReduce", "ZooKeeper", "HBase".
    */
-  @Documented public @interface LimitedPrivate {
+  @Documented
+  @Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
+  public @interface LimitedPrivate {
     String[] value();
   };
   
   /**
    * Intended for use only within Hadoop itself.
    */
-  @Documented public @interface Private {};
+  @Documented
+  @Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
+  public @interface Private {};
 
   private InterfaceAudience() {} // Audience can't exist on its own
 }
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
index d7b44ddb83..db5808d448 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -346,6 +346,9 @@ Release 2.4.0 - UNRELEASED
     HADOOP-9454. Support multipart uploads for s3native. (Jordan Mendelson and
     Akira AJISAKA via atm)
 
+    HADOOP-10374. InterfaceAudience annotations should have
+    RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME (Enis Soztutar via Arpit Agarwal)
+
   OPTIMIZATIONS
 
   BUG FIXES