diff --git a/requirements_for_test.txt b/requirements_for_test.txt
index 50e511381..b6567ea5b 100644
--- a/requirements_for_test.txt
+++ b/requirements_for_test.txt
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ pycodestyle==2.3.1
 pytest==3.2.1
 pytest-mock==1.6.2
 pytest-cov==2.5.1
+pytest-xdist==1.20.0
 coveralls==1.2.0
 moto==1.1.1
 freezegun==0.3.9
diff --git a/scripts/run_tests.sh b/scripts/run_tests.sh
index 9da50144c..b6f946892 100755
--- a/scripts/run_tests.sh
+++ b/scripts/run_tests.sh
@@ -30,5 +30,6 @@ fi
 pycodestyle .
 display_result $? 1 "Code style check"
 
-py.test --cov=app --cov-report=term-missing tests/ --junitxml=test_results.xml
+# run with six concurrent threads
+py.test --cov=app --cov-report=term-missing tests/ --junitxml=test_results.xml -n 6
 display_result $? 2 "Unit tests"
diff --git a/tests/conftest.py b/tests/conftest.py
index 191fa5e56..6a34de31d 100644
--- a/tests/conftest.py
+++ b/tests/conftest.py
@@ -1,12 +1,14 @@
 from contextlib import contextmanager
 import os
 
-import boto3
-import pytest
 from alembic.command import upgrade
 from alembic.config import Config
 from flask_migrate import Migrate, MigrateCommand
 from flask_script import Manager
+from psycopg2.extensions import ISOLATION_LEVEL_AUTOCOMMIT
+import boto3
+import psycopg2
+import pytest
 
 from app import create_app, db
 
@@ -45,9 +47,31 @@ def client(notify_api):
         yield client
 
 
+def create_test_db(database_uri):
+    database_name = database_uri.split('/')[-1]
+    system_db = psycopg2.connect(dbname='postgres')
+    system_db.set_isolation_level(ISOLATION_LEVEL_AUTOCOMMIT)
+    cursor = system_db.cursor()
+
+    try:
+        cursor.execute('CREATE DATABASE {}'.format(database_name))
+    except psycopg2.ProgrammingError:
+        # database "test_notification_api_x..." already exists
+        pass
+    finally:
+        cursor.close()
+        system_db.close()
+
+
 @pytest.fixture(scope='session')
-def notify_db(notify_api):
-    assert db.engine.url.database != 'notification_api', 'dont run tests against main db'
+def notify_db(notify_api, worker_id):
+    assert 'test_notification_api' in db.engine.url.database, 'dont run tests against main db'
+
+    # create a database for this worker thread -
+    from flask import current_app
+    current_app.config['SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI'] += '_{}'.format(worker_id)
+    create_test_db(current_app.config['SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI'])
+
     Migrate(notify_api, db)
     Manager(db, MigrateCommand)
     BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(__file__))