diff --git a/nova/tests/functional/notification_sample_tests/notification_sample_base.py b/nova/tests/functional/notification_sample_tests/notification_sample_base.py
index 129bbe6e4115..44517a205a3c 100644
--- a/nova/tests/functional/notification_sample_tests/notification_sample_base.py
+++ b/nova/tests/functional/notification_sample_tests/notification_sample_base.py
@@ -199,3 +199,25 @@ class NotificationSampleTestBase(test.TestCase,
         self.assertTrue(
             received,
             'notification %s hasn\'t been received' % event_type)
+
+    def _wait_for_notifications(self, event_type, expected_count, timeout=1.0):
+        notifications = []
+        start_time = time.clock()
+
+        while (len(notifications) < expected_count
+               and time.clock() - start_time < timeout):
+
+            fake_notifier.wait_for_versioned_notification(event_type, timeout)
+            notifications += self._get_notifications(event_type)
+            # NOTE(gibi): reading and then resetting the fake_notifier without
+            # synchronization doesn't lead to race condition as the only
+            # parallelism is due to eventlet.
+            fake_notifier.reset()
+
+        self.assertEqual(expected_count, len(notifications),
+                         'Unexpected number of %s notifications '
+                         'within the given timeout. '
+                         'Expected %d, got %d: %s' %
+                         (event_type, expected_count, len(notifications),
+                          notifications))
+        return notifications
diff --git a/nova/tests/functional/notification_sample_tests/test_instance.py b/nova/tests/functional/notification_sample_tests/test_instance.py
index 3b21b4266d70..e6aff7a7fefa 100644
--- a/nova/tests/functional/notification_sample_tests/test_instance.py
+++ b/nova/tests/functional/notification_sample_tests/test_instance.py
@@ -153,7 +153,7 @@ class TestInstanceNotificationSample(
         server = self._boot_a_server(
             extra_params={'networks': [{'port': self.neutron.port_1['id']}]})
 
-        instance_updates = self._get_notifications('instance.update')
+        instance_updates = self._wait_for_notifications('instance.update', 7)
 
         # The first notification comes from the nova-conductor the
         # rest is from the nova-compute. To keep the test simpler
@@ -163,10 +163,6 @@ class TestInstanceNotificationSample(
                          instance_updates[0]['publisher_id'])
         instance_updates[0]['publisher_id'] = 'nova-compute:fake-mini'
 
-        self.assertEqual(7, len(instance_updates),
-                         'Unexpected number of instance.update notifications. '
-                         'Expected 7, got %s: %s' % (
-                             len(instance_updates), instance_updates))
         create_steps = [
             # nothing -> scheduling
             {'reservation_id': server['reservation_id'],