diff --git a/Dockerfile b/Dockerfile
index 009081d9dd..d70244583b 100644
--- a/Dockerfile
+++ b/Dockerfile
@@ -149,7 +149,7 @@ RUN set -e; \
     python -c "import os; from sentence_transformers import SentenceTransformer; SentenceTransformer(os.environ.get('AUXILIARY_EMBEDDING_MODEL', 'TaylorAI/bge-micro-v2'), device='cpu')"; \
     python -c "import os; from faster_whisper import WhisperModel; WhisperModel(os.environ['WHISPER_MODEL'], device='cpu', compute_type='int8', download_root=os.environ['WHISPER_MODEL_DIR'])"; \
     python -c "import os; import tiktoken; tiktoken.get_encoding(os.environ['TIKTOKEN_ENCODING_NAME'])"; \
-    python -c "import nltk; nltk.download('punkt_tab')"; \
+    python -c "import nltk; nltk.download('punkt_tab', download_dir='/usr/local/share/nltk_data')"; \
     else \
     pip3 install 'torch<=2.9.1' torchvision torchaudio --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu --no-cache-dir; \
     uv pip install --system -r requirements.txt --no-cache-dir; \
@@ -158,7 +158,7 @@ RUN set -e; \
     python -c "import os; from sentence_transformers import SentenceTransformer; SentenceTransformer(os.environ.get('AUXILIARY_EMBEDDING_MODEL', 'TaylorAI/bge-micro-v2'), device='cpu')"; \
     python -c "import os; from faster_whisper import WhisperModel; WhisperModel(os.environ['WHISPER_MODEL'], device='cpu', compute_type='int8', download_root=os.environ['WHISPER_MODEL_DIR'])"; \
     python -c "import os; import tiktoken; tiktoken.get_encoding(os.environ['TIKTOKEN_ENCODING_NAME'])"; \
-    python -c "import nltk; nltk.download('punkt_tab')"; \
+    python -c "import nltk; nltk.download('punkt_tab', download_dir='/usr/local/share/nltk_data')"; \
     fi; \
     fi; \
     mkdir -p /app/backend/data; chown -R $UID:$GID /app/backend/data/; \