diff --git a/.github/workflows/rc.yml b/.github/workflows/rc.yml
index 2af245805d..0a739cd236 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/rc.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/rc.yml
@@ -427,9 +427,6 @@ jobs:
       contents: read
       packages: write
     steps:
-      - uses: actions/setup-python@v7
-        with:
-          cache: 'pip'
       - name: Download source archive
         uses: actions/download-artifact@9000827ccba6bdab643e8b6fd33ac0654aef8333 # v8.0.2
         with:
@@ -441,6 +438,12 @@ jobs:
       - name: Extract source archive
         run: |
           tar -xf apache-arrow-java-*.tar.gz --strip-components=1
+      - name: Set up Python
+        uses: actions/setup-python@v7
+        with:
+          python-version: '3.12'
+          cache: 'pip'
+          cache-dependency-path: docs/requirements.txt
       - name: Build
         run: |
           cd docs