diff --git a/src/core/qgsgdalutils.cpp b/src/core/qgsgdalutils.cpp
index cd3e29251db0..afe05bf06573 100644
--- a/src/core/qgsgdalutils.cpp
+++ b/src/core/qgsgdalutils.cpp
@@ -855,7 +855,13 @@ QString QgsGdalUtils::vsiPrefixForPath( const QString &path )
     return QStringLiteral( "/vsizip/" );
   }
   else if ( path.endsWith( QLatin1String( ".zip" ), Qt::CaseInsensitive ) )
+  {
+    // GTFS driver directly handles .zip files
+    const char *const apszAllowedDrivers[] = { "GTFS", nullptr };
+    if ( GDALIdentifyDriverEx( path.toUtf8().constData(), GDAL_OF_VECTOR, apszAllowedDrivers, nullptr ) )
+      return QString();
     return QStringLiteral( "/vsizip/" );
+  }
   else if ( path.endsWith( QLatin1String( ".tar" ), Qt::CaseInsensitive ) ||
             path.endsWith( QLatin1String( ".tar.gz" ), Qt::CaseInsensitive ) ||
             path.endsWith( QLatin1String( ".tgz" ), Qt::CaseInsensitive ) )
diff --git a/tests/src/python/test_provider_ogr.py b/tests/src/python/test_provider_ogr.py
index bea3c46863cf..e03ee1ca34a8 100644
--- a/tests/src/python/test_provider_ogr.py
+++ b/tests/src/python/test_provider_ogr.py
@@ -1626,6 +1626,15 @@ def testDecodeEncodeUriVsizip(self):
         encodedUri = QgsProviderRegistry.instance().encodeUri('ogr', parts)
         self.assertEqual(encodedUri, uri)
 
+    @unittest.skipIf(gdal.GetDriverByName("GTFS") is None, "GTFS driver required")
+    def testDecodeGTFS(self):
+        """Test querySublayers() for GTFS .zip dataset"""
+
+        uri = os.path.join(TEST_DATA_DIR, "ogr", "gtfs_extract.zip")
+        metadata = QgsProviderRegistry.instance().providerMetadata('ogr')
+        res = metadata.querySublayers(uri)
+        self.assertEqual(len(res), 9)
+
     def testDecodeEncodeUriCredentialOptions(self):
         """Test decodeUri/encodeUri credential options support"""
 
diff --git a/tests/testdata/ogr/gtfs_extract.zip b/tests/testdata/ogr/gtfs_extract.zip
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..69538aa39166
Binary files /dev/null and b/tests/testdata/ogr/gtfs_extract.zip differ