Techniques are described for prioritized establishment of communication sessions. In one example, a network device parses a configuration file that defines a plurality of communication sessions of a routing protocol and includes priority values assigned to the communication sessions. The network device creates two or more lists of communication sessions for two or more of the priority values based on the configuration file, wherein each list of the two or more lists is created for a particular priority value of the priority values and defines one or more communication sessions of the plurality of communication sessions that are assigned the particular priority value. The network device then establishes the one or more communication sessions included in each list of the two or more lists according to an ordering based on the priority values associated with the two or more lists.