A system for Receive Packet Steering (RPS) support for Network Function Virtualization (NFV) by system call bypass includes a memory, a plurality of central processing units (CPUs) in communication with the memory, an operating system, and a Network Interface Controller (NIC) including a receive queue. The system also includes a driver thread and a plurality of forwarding threads. The driver thread handles the receive queue of the NIC. In an example, a first forwarding thread of the plurality of forwarding threads executes a system call. The first forwarding thread executes on the first CPU. The system call, when executed, executes a monitor instruction on a first CPU to monitor for updates to a designated memory location and checks a condition. Checking the condition includes reading the designated memory location and determining whether information in the designated memory location indicates that a new packet for the first forwarding thread has arrived.