diff --git a/google-cloud-spanner/pom.xml b/google-cloud-spanner/pom.xml
index a7d3ad2b6c..5031408852 100644
--- a/google-cloud-spanner/pom.xml
+++ b/google-cloud-spanner/pom.xml
@@ -142,16 +142,6 @@
       <groupId>io.grpc</groupId>
       <artifactId>grpc-protobuf</artifactId>
     </dependency>
-    <dependency>
-      <groupId>io.grpc</groupId>
-      <artifactId>grpc-alts</artifactId>
-      <scope>runtime</scope>
-    </dependency>
-    <!--
-      grpc-stub is needed directly by our tests and transitively by grpc-alts at runtime.
-      So it has to be declared as a direct dependency and to avoid overriding grpc-alts'
-      runtime requirement it has to be promoted to the runtime scope.
-    -->
     <dependency>
       <groupId>io.grpc</groupId>
       <artifactId>grpc-stub</artifactId>
@@ -264,6 +254,13 @@
       <scope>test</scope>
     </dependency>
 
+    <!-- Test dependency for DirectPath -->
+    <dependency>
+      <groupId>io.grpc</groupId>
+      <artifactId>grpc-alts</artifactId>
+      <scope>test</scope>
+    </dependency>
+
     <!-- Need testing utility classes for generated gRPC clients tests -->
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.google.api</groupId>