diff --git a/sql/api/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/internal/SqlApiConf.scala b/sql/api/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/internal/SqlApiConf.scala
index d746e9037ec48..5ec72b83837ee 100644
--- a/sql/api/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/internal/SqlApiConf.scala
+++ b/sql/api/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/internal/SqlApiConf.scala
@@ -17,7 +17,6 @@
 package org.apache.spark.sql.internal
 
 import java.util.TimeZone
-import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicReference
 
 import scala.util.Try
 
@@ -48,25 +47,14 @@ private[sql] trait SqlApiConf {
 
 private[sql] object SqlApiConf {
   // Shared keys.
-  val ANSI_ENABLED_KEY: String = "spark.sql.ansi.enabled"
-  val LEGACY_TIME_PARSER_POLICY_KEY: String = "spark.sql.legacy.timeParserPolicy"
-  val CASE_SENSITIVE_KEY: String = "spark.sql.caseSensitive"
-  val SESSION_LOCAL_TIMEZONE_KEY: String = "spark.sql.session.timeZone"
-  val LOCAL_RELATION_CACHE_THRESHOLD_KEY: String = "spark.sql.session.localRelationCacheThreshold"
+  val ANSI_ENABLED_KEY: String = SqlApiConfHelper.ANSI_ENABLED_KEY
+  val LEGACY_TIME_PARSER_POLICY_KEY: String = SqlApiConfHelper.LEGACY_TIME_PARSER_POLICY_KEY
+  val CASE_SENSITIVE_KEY: String = SqlApiConfHelper.CASE_SENSITIVE_KEY
+  val SESSION_LOCAL_TIMEZONE_KEY: String = SqlApiConfHelper.SESSION_LOCAL_TIMEZONE_KEY
+  val LOCAL_RELATION_CACHE_THRESHOLD_KEY: String =
+    SqlApiConfHelper.LOCAL_RELATION_CACHE_THRESHOLD_KEY
 
-  /**
-   * Defines a getter that returns the [[SqlApiConf]] within scope.
-   */
-  private val confGetter = new AtomicReference[() => SqlApiConf](() => DefaultSqlApiConf)
-
-  /**
-   * Sets the active config getter.
-   */
-  private[sql] def setConfGetter(getter: () => SqlApiConf): Unit = {
-    confGetter.set(getter)
-  }
-
-  def get: SqlApiConf = confGetter.get()()
+  def get: SqlApiConf = SqlApiConfHelper.getConfGetter.get()()
 
   // Force load SQLConf. This will trigger the installation of a confGetter that points to SQLConf.
   Try(SparkClassUtils.classForName("org.apache.spark.sql.internal.SQLConf$"))
diff --git a/sql/api/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/internal/SqlApiConfHelper.scala b/sql/api/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/internal/SqlApiConfHelper.scala
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..79b6cb9231c51
--- /dev/null
+++ b/sql/api/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/internal/SqlApiConfHelper.scala
@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+/*
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+ * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+ * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+ * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+ * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+ * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+package org.apache.spark.sql.internal
+
+import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicReference
+
+/**
+ * SqlApiConfHelper is created to avoid a deadlock during a concurrent access to SQLConf and
+ * SqlApiConf, which is because SQLConf and SqlApiConf tries to load each other upon
+ * initializations. SqlApiConfHelper is private to sql package and is not supposed to be
+ * accessed by end users. Variables and methods within SqlApiConfHelper are defined to
+ * be used by SQLConf and SqlApiConf only.
+ */
+private[sql] object SqlApiConfHelper {
+  // Shared keys.
+  val ANSI_ENABLED_KEY: String = "spark.sql.ansi.enabled"
+  val LEGACY_TIME_PARSER_POLICY_KEY: String = "spark.sql.legacy.timeParserPolicy"
+  val CASE_SENSITIVE_KEY: String = "spark.sql.caseSensitive"
+  val SESSION_LOCAL_TIMEZONE_KEY: String = "spark.sql.session.timeZone"
+  val LOCAL_RELATION_CACHE_THRESHOLD_KEY: String = "spark.sql.session.localRelationCacheThreshold"
+
+  val confGetter: AtomicReference[() => SqlApiConf] = {
+    new AtomicReference[() => SqlApiConf](() => DefaultSqlApiConf)
+  }
+
+  def getConfGetter: AtomicReference[() => SqlApiConf] = confGetter
+
+  /**
+   * Sets the active config getter.
+   */
+  def setConfGetter(getter: () => SqlApiConf): Unit = {
+    confGetter.set(getter)
+  }
+}
diff --git a/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/internal/SQLConf.scala b/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/internal/SQLConf.scala
index d54cb3756638e..fbceea4e5f8e2 100644
--- a/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/internal/SQLConf.scala
+++ b/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/internal/SQLConf.scala
@@ -182,7 +182,7 @@ object SQLConf {
 
   // Make sure SqlApiConf is always in sync with SQLConf. SqlApiConf will always try to
   // load SqlConf to make sure both classes are in sync from the get go.
-  SqlApiConf.setConfGetter(() => SQLConf.get)
+  SqlApiConfHelper.setConfGetter(() => SQLConf.get)
 
   /**
    * Returns the active config object within the current scope. If there is an active SparkSession,
@@ -915,7 +915,7 @@ object SQLConf {
       .booleanConf
       .createWithDefault(false)
 
-  val CASE_SENSITIVE = buildConf(SqlApiConf.CASE_SENSITIVE_KEY)
+  val CASE_SENSITIVE = buildConf(SqlApiConfHelper.CASE_SENSITIVE_KEY)
     .internal()
     .doc("Whether the query analyzer should be case sensitive or not. " +
       "Default to case insensitive. It is highly discouraged to turn on case sensitive mode.")
@@ -2757,7 +2757,7 @@ object SQLConf {
     Try { DateTimeUtils.getZoneId(zone) }.isSuccess
   }
 
-  val SESSION_LOCAL_TIMEZONE = buildConf(SqlApiConf.SESSION_LOCAL_TIMEZONE_KEY)
+  val SESSION_LOCAL_TIMEZONE = buildConf(SqlApiConfHelper.SESSION_LOCAL_TIMEZONE_KEY)
     .doc("The ID of session local timezone in the format of either region-based zone IDs or " +
       "zone offsets. Region IDs must have the form 'area/city', such as 'America/Los_Angeles'. " +
       "Zone offsets must be in the format '(+|-)HH', '(+|-)HH:mm' or '(+|-)HH:mm:ss', e.g '-08', " +
@@ -3281,7 +3281,7 @@ object SQLConf {
       .checkValues(StoreAssignmentPolicy.values.map(_.toString))
       .createWithDefault(StoreAssignmentPolicy.ANSI.toString)
 
-  val ANSI_ENABLED = buildConf(SqlApiConf.ANSI_ENABLED_KEY)
+  val ANSI_ENABLED = buildConf(SqlApiConfHelper.ANSI_ENABLED_KEY)
     .doc("When true, Spark SQL uses an ANSI compliant dialect instead of being Hive compliant. " +
       "For example, Spark will throw an exception at runtime instead of returning null results " +
       "when the inputs to a SQL operator/function are invalid." +
@@ -3914,7 +3914,7 @@ object SQLConf {
     .booleanConf
     .createWithDefault(false)
 
-  val LEGACY_TIME_PARSER_POLICY = buildConf(SqlApiConf.LEGACY_TIME_PARSER_POLICY_KEY)
+  val LEGACY_TIME_PARSER_POLICY = buildConf(SqlApiConfHelper.LEGACY_TIME_PARSER_POLICY_KEY)
     .internal()
     .doc("When LEGACY, java.text.SimpleDateFormat is used for formatting and parsing " +
       "dates/timestamps in a locale-sensitive manner, which is the approach before Spark 3.0. " +
@@ -4476,7 +4476,7 @@ object SQLConf {
       .createWithDefault(false)
 
   val LOCAL_RELATION_CACHE_THRESHOLD =
-    buildConf(SqlApiConf.LOCAL_RELATION_CACHE_THRESHOLD_KEY)
+    buildConf(SqlApiConfHelper.LOCAL_RELATION_CACHE_THRESHOLD_KEY)
       .doc("The threshold for the size in bytes of local relations to be cached at " +
         "the driver side after serialization.")
       .version("3.5.0")