diff --git a/tests/rust_core_unit_tests/bench_pattern_prefilter.py b/tests/rust_core_unit_tests/bench_pattern_prefilter.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..36e126e3b7e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/rust_core_unit_tests/bench_pattern_prefilter.py
@@ -0,0 +1,168 @@
+"""
+Benchmark: Rust RegexSet pre-filter vs serial Python regex loop, for the
+common "clean text, nothing matches" case in ContentFilterGuardrail.
+
+Run with:
+    python tests/rust_core_unit_tests/bench_pattern_prefilter.py
+
+Requires the Rust extension built in release mode:
+    cd rust && maturin develop --uv --release
+
+ContentFilterGuardrail's regex-pattern loop (content_filter.py,
+_filter_single_text) checks every compiled pattern against every message on
+every guardrail-enabled request, unconditionally. It never short-circuits,
+because it must collect every match, not just the first one. Most production
+traffic contains no PII at all, so on the overwhelmingly common path every
+pattern is checked and every one fails to match.
+
+  python path   loop over each eligible pattern, regex.search(text) per pattern
+
+  rust path     RegexSet.is_match(text): one combined automaton run that
+                 tests all eligible patterns simultaneously
+"""
+
+import json
+import os
+import re
+import timeit
+
+from litellm.proxy.guardrails.guardrail_hooks.litellm_content_filter.pattern_prefilter import (
+    AlwaysMatchPrefilter,
+    build_rust_pattern_prefilter,
+)
+
+_PATTERNS_JSON = os.path.join(
+    os.path.dirname(__file__),
+    "..",
+    "..",
+    "litellm",
+    "proxy",
+    "guardrails",
+    "guardrail_hooks",
+    "litellm_content_filter",
+    "patterns.json",
+)
+
+
+def _load_simple_pattern_sources() -> list[str]:
+    """Mirrors ContentFilterGuardrail's partition: patterns with no
+    contextual keyword-proximity config are eligible for the fast path."""
+    with open(_PATTERNS_JSON) as f:
+        data = json.load(f)
+    known_keys = {
+        "name",
+        "display_name",
+        "pattern",
+        "category",
+        "action",
+        "description",
+    }
+    sources = []
+    for entry in data["patterns"]:
+        extra = {k: v for k, v in entry.items() if k not in known_keys}
+        if extra.get("keyword_pattern") or extra.get("allow_word_numbers"):
+            continue
+        sources.append(entry["pattern"])
+    return sources
+
+
+SIMPLE_PATTERN_SOURCES = _load_simple_pattern_sources()
+COMPILED_PYTHON_PATTERNS = [
+    re.compile(p, re.IGNORECASE) for p in SIMPLE_PATTERN_SOURCES
+]
+PREFILTER, REJECTED = build_rust_pattern_prefilter(SIMPLE_PATTERN_SOURCES)
+if isinstance(PREFILTER, AlwaysMatchPrefilter):
+    raise SystemExit(
+        "litellm_core not found. Build it first:\n"
+        "  cd rust && maturin develop --uv --release"
+    )
+ELIGIBLE_PYTHON_PATTERNS = [
+    p for i, p in enumerate(COMPILED_PYTHON_PATTERNS) if i not in REJECTED
+]
+
+
+def _python_loop(text: str) -> bool:
+    return any(p.search(text) for p in ELIGIBLE_PYTHON_PATTERNS)
+
+
+def _rust_prefilter(text: str) -> bool:
+    return PREFILTER.any_match(text)
+
+
+CLEAN_TEXTS = {
+    "short  (~10 words)": "Can you help me write a short poem about the ocean at sunset?",
+    "medium (~80 words)": (
+        "I've been working on a quarterly report for our engineering team and "
+        "I'm trying to summarize the key infrastructure improvements we made "
+        "this quarter. We moved several services onto a faster build "
+        "pipeline, improved our test coverage across the backend, and reduced "
+        "average request latency by optimizing a few slow database queries. "
+        "Could you help me turn these notes into a few clear paragraphs "
+        "suitable for a leadership update, keeping the tone professional "
+        "but not overly formal?"
+    ),
+    "long   (~400 words)": (
+        "Can you help me draft a detailed design document for a new internal "
+        "tool? "
+        + " ".join(
+            [
+                "The tool should let engineers browse service dependencies, "
+                "review recent releases, and check on-call rotations without "
+                "needing to jump between five different dashboards."
+            ]
+            * 12
+        )
+    ),
+}
+
+WARMUP = 200
+REPEATS = 5
+
+
+def _measure_us(fn, arg) -> float:
+    fn(arg)
+    times = timeit.repeat(lambda: fn(arg), number=WARMUP, repeat=REPEATS)
+    return min(times) / WARMUP * 1_000_000
+
+
+def main() -> None:
+    print()
+    print(
+        f"{len(SIMPLE_PATTERN_SOURCES)} simple patterns total, "
+        f"{len(REJECTED)} rejected by Rust (contextual logic stays in Python), "
+        f"{len(ELIGIBLE_PYTHON_PATTERNS)} eligible for the fast path."
+    )
+    print("All text below is clean (no PII): the dominant case in production traffic,")
+    print(
+        "and the only one where ContentFilterGuardrail's loop runs to completion today."
+    )
+    print()
+
+    col = max(len(label) for label in CLEAN_TEXTS) + 2
+    print(
+        f"{'Scenario':<{col}}  {'python: serial loop':>20}  "
+        f"{'rust: RegexSet':>20}  {'speedup':>8}"
+    )
+    print("-" * (col + 56))
+
+    for label, text in CLEAN_TEXTS.items():
+        assert _python_loop(text) is False
+        assert _rust_prefilter(text) is False
+        py_us = _measure_us(_python_loop, text)
+        rs_us = _measure_us(_rust_prefilter, text)
+        speedup = py_us / rs_us
+        print(
+            f"{label:<{col}}"
+            f"  {py_us:>19.1f}µs"
+            f"  {rs_us:>19.1f}µs"
+            f"  {speedup:>7.1f}x"
+        )
+
+    print()
+    print("rust: one combined NFA pass tests all eligible patterns simultaneously.")
+    print("python: each pattern runs its own re.search call over the same text.")
+    print()
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    main()