diff --git a/vllm/attention/backends/flash_attn.py b/vllm/attention/backends/flash_attn.py
index 0361dd3bd4ea..0f4568070cfc 100644
--- a/vllm/attention/backends/flash_attn.py
+++ b/vllm/attention/backends/flash_attn.py
@@ -9,11 +9,13 @@
 from vllm.attention.backends.abstract import (AttentionBackend, AttentionImpl,
                                               AttentionMetadata)
 
-_SUPPORTED_HEAD_SIZES = [32, 64, 96, 128, 160, 192, 224, 256]
-
 
 class FlashAttentionBackend(AttentionBackend):
 
+    @staticmethod
+    def get_supported_head_sizes() -> List[int]:
+        return [32, 64, 96, 128, 160, 192, 224, 256]
+
     @staticmethod
     def get_name() -> str:
         return "flash-attn"
@@ -237,10 +239,12 @@ def __init__(
             # paged KV cache.
             raise ValueError(
                 "Sliding window is not supported in FlashAttention.")
-        if head_size not in _SUPPORTED_HEAD_SIZES:
+
+        support_head_sizes = FlashAttentionBackend.get_supported_head_sizes()
+        if head_size not in support_head_sizes:
             raise ValueError(
                 f"Head size {head_size} is not supported by FlashAttention. "
-                f"Supported head sizes are: {_SUPPORTED_HEAD_SIZES}.")
+                f"Supported head sizes are: {support_head_sizes}.")
 
     def forward(
         self,
diff --git a/vllm/attention/selector.py b/vllm/attention/selector.py
index 5140c3cc86a3..51c25a81b413 100644
--- a/vllm/attention/selector.py
+++ b/vllm/attention/selector.py
@@ -34,11 +34,21 @@ def get_attn_backend(
                                  sliding_window, dtype, kv_cache_dtype,
                                  block_size)
     if backend == _Backend.FLASH_ATTN:
-        logger.info("Using FlashAttention-2 backend.")
         from vllm.attention.backends.flash_attn import (  # noqa: F401
             FlashAttentionBackend)
-        return FlashAttentionBackend
-    elif backend == _Backend.XFORMERS:
+
+        # We check it here not in _which_attn_to_use because we cannot know
+        # the head size until we import FlashAttentionBackend.
+        supported_head_sizes = FlashAttentionBackend.get_supported_head_sizes()
+        if head_size in supported_head_sizes:
+            logger.info("Using FlashAttention-2 backend.")
+            return FlashAttentionBackend
+        logger.info(
+            "Cannot use FlashAttention-2 backend for head size %d. "
+            "Using XFormers backend instead.", head_size)
+        backend = _Backend.XFORMERS
+
+    if backend == _Backend.XFORMERS:
         logger.info("Using XFormers backend.")
         from vllm.attention.backends.xformers import (  # noqa: F401
             XFormersBackend)