diff --git a/ui/litellm-dashboard/src/components/networking.tsx b/ui/litellm-dashboard/src/components/networking.tsx
index 16f35605877..b235c75ed2e 100644
--- a/ui/litellm-dashboard/src/components/networking.tsx
+++ b/ui/litellm-dashboard/src/components/networking.tsx
@@ -80,10 +80,13 @@ import NotificationsManager from "./molecules/notifications_manager";
 const isLocal = process.env.NODE_ENV === "development";
 // In dev, if NEXT_PUBLIC_USE_REWRITES=true the Next.js dev server proxies API calls
 // to the backend — use relative URLs (null) so rewrites can intercept them.
+// NEXT_PUBLIC_LITELLM_PROXY_URL overrides the hardcoded localhost:4000 default,
+// which is useful when running the frontend against a port-forwarded K8s backend.
 const defaultProxyBaseUrl =
-  isLocal && process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_USE_REWRITES !== "true"
+  process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_LITELLM_PROXY_URL ??
+  (isLocal && process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_USE_REWRITES !== "true"
     ? "http://localhost:4000"
-    : null;
+    : null);
 const defaultServerRootPath = "/";
 export let serverRootPath = defaultServerRootPath;
 const WORKER_URL_KEY = "litellm_worker_url";