Certain aspects of the present disclosure relate to wireless communications and methods and apparatus for downlink flow control at a user equipment (UE). Aspects generally include monitoring, by a UE, one or more parameters related to the UE, and selectively dropping received packets based on the one or more parameters in order to trigger a rate control mechanism. Selectively dropping received packets may occur at a Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) layer in order to reduce a corresponding transmission control protocol (TCP) throughput. Accordingly, packets may be selectively dropped prior to reaching an applications processor.