diff --git a/.gitlab-ci.yml b/.gitlab-ci.yml
index 36f116679626ed8560f08f3626bd3ce87c885bfd..c393e4d85dcb3412687aa2816a7363765f4e7180 100644
--- a/.gitlab-ci.yml
+++ b/.gitlab-ci.yml
@@ -398,6 +398,8 @@ render:win-64:testing:
     XDG_CONFIG_HOME: "${CI_PROJECT_DIR}/.config"
     # configure condor to use a configuration file, not /dev/null
     CONDOR_CONFIG: "${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/condor_config"
+    # cache data from GWpy
+    GWPY_CACHE: 1
     # force individual tests to only use one core
     # (list taken from
     #  https://github.com/htcondor/htcondor/blob/V9_1_0/src/condor_utils/param_info.in#L2689)