diff --git a/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/CHANGELOG.md b/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/CHANGELOG.md
index bffafa8599d..50c85d7eebf 100644
--- a/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ Entries should include a reference to the Pull Request that introduced the chang
 * [ENHANCEMENT] Add Support to customize gossip ring k8s service annotations. #12718
 * [ENHANCEMENT] Ruler querier and query-frontend: Add support for newly-introduced querier ring, which is used when performing query planning in query-frontends and distributing portions of the plan to queriers for execution. #13017
 * [ENHANCEMENT] Upgrade rollout-operator chart to [0.37.0](https://github.com/grafana/helm-charts/blob/main/charts/rollout-operator/README.md#upgrade-of-grafana-rollout-operator). Note required actions for upgrading the rollout-operator chart. #13245
+* [ENHANCEMENT] Add support for `kafka.address" to use an existing Kafka instead of installing an internal one.
 * [BUGFIX] Fix missing newline for custom pod labels. #13325
 * [BUGFIX] Upgrade rollout-operator chart to 0.37.1, which fixes server-tls.self-signed-cert.dns-name to use the full release name instead of always being set to `rollout-operator.NAMESPACE.svc`. If upgrading from 6.0.0 or 6.0.1, delete the `certificate` secret created by the rollout-operator pod and recreate the rollout-operator pod. #13357
 
diff --git a/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/templates/kafka/kafka-pdb.yaml b/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/templates/kafka/kafka-pdb.yaml
index 551253e6f6a..f82aec440da 100644
--- a/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/templates/kafka/kafka-pdb.yaml
+++ b/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/templates/kafka/kafka-pdb.yaml
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
-{{- if .Values.kafka.enabled -}}
+{{- if and .Values.kafka.enabled (eq .Values.kafka.address "") -}}
 {{- include "mimir.lib.podDisruptionBudget" (dict "ctx" $ "component" "kafka") }}
 {{- end }}
diff --git a/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/templates/kafka/kafka-statefulset.yaml b/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/templates/kafka/kafka-statefulset.yaml
index 078ef116aab..5c39cedff9d 100644
--- a/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/templates/kafka/kafka-statefulset.yaml
+++ b/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/templates/kafka/kafka-statefulset.yaml
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-{{- if .Values.kafka.enabled -}}
+{{- if and .Values.kafka.enabled (eq .Values.kafka.address "") -}}
 {{- with .Values.kafka -}}
 {{- $replicas := .replicas | default 1 -}}
 apiVersion: apps/v1
diff --git a/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/templates/kafka/kafka-svc-headless.yaml b/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/templates/kafka/kafka-svc-headless.yaml
index 9f0685a97ed..11be582ea3f 100644
--- a/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/templates/kafka/kafka-svc-headless.yaml
+++ b/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/templates/kafka/kafka-svc-headless.yaml
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-{{- if .Values.kafka.enabled -}}
+{{- if and .Values.kafka.enabled (eq .Values.kafka.address "") -}}
 apiVersion: v1
 kind: Service
 metadata:
diff --git a/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/templates/kafka/kafka-svc.yaml b/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/templates/kafka/kafka-svc.yaml
index b6b7bbf3a8c..a9be7b1b401 100644
--- a/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/templates/kafka/kafka-svc.yaml
+++ b/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/templates/kafka/kafka-svc.yaml
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-{{- if .Values.kafka.enabled -}}
+{{- if and .Values.kafka.enabled (eq .Values.kafka.address "") -}}
 apiVersion: v1
 kind: Service
 metadata:
diff --git a/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/values.yaml b/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/values.yaml
index a97cdcdc9ad..fd7ab0c57bf 100644
--- a/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/values.yaml
+++ b/operations/helm/charts/mimir-distributed/values.yaml
@@ -235,8 +235,12 @@ mimir:
       kafka:
         {{- if .Values.kafka.enabled }}
         # Address of Kafka broker to bootstrap the connection.
+        {{- if .Values.kafka.address }}
+        address: {{ .Values.kafka.address }}
+        {{- else }}
         address: {{ template "mimir.fullname" . }}-kafka.{{ .Release.Namespace }}.svc.{{ $.Values.global.clusterDomain }}:{{ $.Values.kafka.service.port }}
         {{- end }}
+        {{- end }}
         # Topic name.
         topic: mimir-ingest
         # Mimir will auto-create the topic on start up.
@@ -2987,6 +2991,10 @@ kafka:
   # -- Enable Kafka for ingest-storage architecture
   enabled: true
 
+  # address of existing kafka API
+  # kafka won't be installed if you set this
+  address: ""
+
   image:
     # -- The container image registry
     registry: docker.io