diff --git a/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-elasticsearch/src/opentelemetry/instrumentation/elasticsearch/__init__.py b/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-elasticsearch/src/opentelemetry/instrumentation/elasticsearch/__init__.py
index dd72a5235e..8f3842deb2 100644
--- a/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-elasticsearch/src/opentelemetry/instrumentation/elasticsearch/__init__.py
+++ b/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-elasticsearch/src/opentelemetry/instrumentation/elasticsearch/__init__.py
@@ -245,9 +245,11 @@ def wrapper(wrapped, _, args, kwargs):
                 if method:
                     attributes["elasticsearch.method"] = method
                 if body:
-                    attributes[SpanAttributes.DB_STATEMENT] = sanitize_body(
-                        body
-                    )
+                    # Don't set db.statement for bulk requests, as it can be very large
+                    if isinstance(body, dict):
+                        attributes[SpanAttributes.DB_STATEMENT] = sanitize_body(
+                            body
+                        )
                 if params:
                     attributes["elasticsearch.params"] = str(params)
                 if doc_id: