diff --git a/k8s/apps/paperless/configmap.yaml b/k8s/apps/paperless/configmap.yaml
index 6a0bfc8..73983c2 100644
--- a/k8s/apps/paperless/configmap.yaml
+++ b/k8s/apps/paperless/configmap.yaml
@@ -7,6 +7,8 @@ data:
   PAPERLESS_TIME_ZONE: "America/Los_Angeles"
   PAPERLESS_OCR_LANGUAGE: "eng"
   PAPERLESS_DBHOST: "paperless-db-rw"
+  # v3 requires this explicit - previously inferred from PAPERLESS_DBHOST
+  PAPERLESS_DBENGINE: "postgresql"
   PAPERLESS_DBNAME: "paperless"
   PAPERLESS_REDIS: "redis://paperless-redis:6379"
   # django-allauth generic OIDC provider. The client_id/secret/server_url
diff --git a/k8s/apps/paperless/deployment.yaml b/k8s/apps/paperless/deployment.yaml
index 2349a6c..9115dc8 100644
--- a/k8s/apps/paperless/deployment.yaml
+++ b/k8s/apps/paperless/deployment.yaml
@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ spec:
         kubernetes.io/hostname: talos-cp-3
       containers:
         - name: paperless
-          image: ghcr.io/paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx:2.13
+          image: ghcr.io/paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx:3.0.5
           ports:
             - containerPort: 8000
           envFrom: