The feature of automatic retry of container-managed transactions configures the container to allow automatic retries of container-managed transactions that have been rolled back due to exceptions thrown at runtime. More specifically, on a per method basis, the container can be instructed to retry a failed transaction as using a new one up to a specified number of times if that method was the originator of the transaction that has been rolled back. The enabling of automatic transaction retries is accomplished either at deployment time by setting properties in the deployment descriptor of an instance of a class, such as EJB, or at runtime by setting properties on the EJB via a console on the application server. The automatic retry of container-managed transactions is a convenient feature that may alleviate the client of the task of explicitly coding transaction retries. In addition to programming convenience, retrying transactions using this feature may also offer performance benefits. This description is not intended to be a complete description of, or limit the scope of, the invention. Other features, aspects, and objects of the invention can be obtained from a review of the specification, the figures, and the claims.