diff --git a/.github/workflows/e2e-ci.yml b/.github/workflows/e2e-ci.yml
index a7ceb39652..13ba72e69f 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/e2e-ci.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/e2e-ci.yml
@@ -108,6 +108,7 @@ jobs:
 
           # 2. Run tests for metrics
           ginkgo e2e/metrics
+          SHARD=shard1 ginkgo e2e/metrics
 
           # 3. Run tests requiring only the git server
           e2e/testenv/infra/infra setup --git-server=true
diff --git a/.github/workflows/nightly-ci.yml b/.github/workflows/nightly-ci.yml
index eb282d2b1e..92f243bc84 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/nightly-ci.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/nightly-ci.yml
@@ -111,6 +111,7 @@ jobs:
 
           # 2. Run tests for metrics
           ginkgo e2e/metrics
+          SHARD=shard1 ginkgo e2e/metrics
 
           # 3. Run tests requiring only the git server
           e2e/testenv/infra/infra setup --git-server=true
diff --git a/charts/fleet/templates/service.yaml b/charts/fleet/templates/service.yaml
index cc17e9b285..90ebf28879 100644
--- a/charts/fleet/templates/service.yaml
+++ b/charts/fleet/templates/service.yaml
@@ -1,8 +1,13 @@
 {{- if .Values.metrics.enabled }}
+{{ $shards := list "" }}
+{{ if .Values.shards }}
+{{ $shards = concat $shards .Values.shards | uniq }}
+{{ end }}
+{{ range $shards }}
 apiVersion: v1
 kind: Service
 metadata:
-  name: monitoring-fleet-controller
+  name: "monitoring-fleet-controller{{if . }}-shard-{{ . }}{{end}}"
   labels:
     app: fleet-controller
 spec:
@@ -14,4 +19,11 @@ spec:
     name: metrics
   selector:
     app: fleet-controller
+    {{- if empty . }}
+    shard-default: "true"
+    {{- else }}
+    shard: "{{ . }}"
+    {{- end }}
+---
+{{- end }}
 {{- end }}
diff --git a/dev/README.md b/dev/README.md
index eb4f7874cd..d8c3795893 100644
--- a/dev/README.md
+++ b/dev/README.md
@@ -389,9 +389,11 @@ helm upgrade --install --create-namespace -n cattle-system-monitoring \
 
 That alone suffices to get a working monitoring setup for the upstream cluster.
 But to connect it to the fleet-controller exported metrics, you need to add a
-service monitor. The service monitor is currently not part of the Helm chart.
-However, the necessary Kubernetes service resource is, unless you have disabled
-monitoring in the Helm chart when installing fleet.
+service monitor for each controller.
+
+The service monitor is currently not part of the Helm chart.  However, the
+necessary Kubernetes service resource is, unless you have disabled monitoring in
+the Helm chart when installing fleet.
 
 ```yaml
 apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
@@ -415,13 +417,20 @@ spec:
   selector:
     matchLabels:
       app: fleet-controller
-
+      shard-default: true
+      # or:
+      # shard: <shard-id>
 ```
 
-This configures Prometheus to scrape the metrics from the fleet-controller. By
-accessing the Prometheus UI, you can now see the metrics from the
-Fleet-Controller. They are all prefixed with `fleet_`, which you will need to
-enter into the expression field of the Graph page to to get auto-completion.
+This configures Prometheus to scrape the metrics from the (unsharded)
+fleet-controller. Should you have sharding enabled, you will additionally need
+to add one ServiceMonitor for each shard.
+
+By accessing the Prometheus UI, you can now see the metrics from the
+fleet-controller. They are all prefixed with `fleet_`, which you will need to
+enter into the expression field of the Graph page to get auto-completion.
+Alternatively you can use the metrics explorer, which is a button next to the
+evaluation input field.
 
 > **__NOTE:__** The Prometheus UI can be used to check the Prometheus
 configuration (e.g., the scrape targets), scraped metrics, check alerts or
@@ -430,7 +439,7 @@ dashboards. It is not accessible by default and not meant to be shown to
 casual users.
 
 To access the Prometheus UI, you can forward the port of the Prometheus service
-to your local machine and access it.
+to your local machine and access it through that port.
 
 ```bash
 kubectl port-forward -n cattle-system-monitoring \
diff --git a/e2e/assets/clustergroup-template.yaml b/e2e/assets/clustergroup-template.yaml
index 7c8f319478..d81e83400a 100644
--- a/e2e/assets/clustergroup-template.yaml
+++ b/e2e/assets/clustergroup-template.yaml
@@ -3,6 +3,12 @@ kind: ClusterGroup
 metadata:
   name: {{ .Name }}
   namespace: {{ .Namespace }}
+  {{- if .Labels }}
+  labels:
+    {{- range $key, $value := .Labels }}
+    {{$key}}: {{$value}}
+    {{- end }}
+  {{- end }}
 spec:
   selector:
     matchLabels:
diff --git a/e2e/assets/gitrepo-template.yaml b/e2e/assets/gitrepo-template.yaml
index 8f4f331577..579cc5f0d5 100644
--- a/e2e/assets/gitrepo-template.yaml
+++ b/e2e/assets/gitrepo-template.yaml
@@ -2,6 +2,10 @@ kind: GitRepo
 apiVersion: fleet.cattle.io/v1alpha1
 metadata:
   name: {{ .Name }}
+  {{- if ne .Shard "" }}
+  labels:
+    fleet.cattle.io/shard: {{ .Shard }}
+  {{- end }}
 
 spec:
   repo: https://github.com/rancher/fleet-test-data
@@ -10,5 +14,4 @@ spec:
     {{- range .Paths}}
     - {{.}}
     {{- end}}
-
   targetNamespace: {{ .TargetNamespace }}
diff --git a/e2e/assets/metrics/fleetcontroller_service.yaml b/e2e/assets/metrics/fleetcontroller_service.yaml
index dea6ffeecd..4b6aef43b2 100644
--- a/e2e/assets/metrics/fleetcontroller_service.yaml
+++ b/e2e/assets/metrics/fleetcontroller_service.yaml
@@ -2,10 +2,17 @@ apiVersion: v1
 kind: Service
 metadata:
   name: {{ .Name }}
+  labels:
+    app: fleet-controller
+    env: test
 spec:
   selector:
     app: fleet-controller
-    shard-default: "true"
+    {{- if .IsDefaultShard }}
+    shard-default: "{{ .IsDefaultShard }}"
+    {{ else }}
+    shard: {{ .Shard }}
+    {{- end }}
   ports:
     - protocol: TCP
       port: {{ .Port }}
diff --git a/e2e/metrics/bundle_test.go b/e2e/metrics/bundle_test.go
index 5c3736c80a..d93e4d291d 100644
--- a/e2e/metrics/bundle_test.go
+++ b/e2e/metrics/bundle_test.go
@@ -147,6 +147,7 @@ var _ = Describe("Bundle Metrics", Label("bundle"), func() {
 			namespace,
 			gitRepoName,
 			branch,
+			shard,
 			"simple-manifest",
 		)
 		Expect(err).ToNot(HaveOccurred())
diff --git a/e2e/metrics/bundledeployment_test.go b/e2e/metrics/bundledeployment_test.go
index 2521a6ef7a..ff46619e6d 100644
--- a/e2e/metrics/bundledeployment_test.go
+++ b/e2e/metrics/bundledeployment_test.go
@@ -39,6 +39,7 @@ var _ = Describe("BundleDeployment Metrics", Label("bundledeployment"), func() {
 			namespace,
 			objName,
 			branch,
+			shard,
 			"simple-manifest",
 		)
 		Expect(err).ToNot(HaveOccurred())
diff --git a/e2e/metrics/cluster_test.go b/e2e/metrics/cluster_test.go
index 29f0389e6a..ee835b2a2f 100644
--- a/e2e/metrics/cluster_test.go
+++ b/e2e/metrics/cluster_test.go
@@ -87,6 +87,9 @@ func expectMetrics(name string, expectedMetrics MetricsSelector, expectExist boo
 
 var _ = Describe("Cluster Metrics", Label("cluster"), func() {
 	It("should have metrics for the local cluster resource", func() {
+		if shard != "" {
+			Skip("local cluster isn't handled by shards and hence cannot be tested using sharding")
+		}
 		eventuallyExpectMetrics("local", expectedMetrics, true)
 	})
 
@@ -99,14 +102,19 @@ var _ = Describe("Cluster Metrics", Label("cluster"), func() {
 				ns := "fleet-local"
 				kw := k.Namespace(ns)
 
+				labels := map[string]string{
+					"management.cattle.io/cluster-display-name": "testing",
+					"name": "testing",
+				}
+				if shard != "" {
+					labels["fleet.cattle.io/shard"] = shard
+				}
+
 				err := testenv.CreateCluster(
 					k,
 					ns,
 					name,
-					map[string]string{
-						"management.cattle.io/cluster-display-name": "testing",
-						"name": "testing",
-					},
+					labels,
 					map[string]string{
 						"clientID": "testing",
 					},
@@ -146,15 +154,19 @@ var _ = Describe("Cluster Metrics", Label("cluster"), func() {
 				name := "testing-deletion"
 				ns := "fleet-local"
 				kw := k.Namespace(ns)
+				labels := map[string]string{
+					"management.cattle.io/cluster-display-name": "testing",
+					"name": "testing",
+				}
+				if shard != "" {
+					labels["fleet.cattle.io/shard"] = shard
+				}
 
 				Expect(testenv.CreateCluster(
 					k,
 					ns,
 					name,
-					map[string]string{
-						"management.cattle.io/cluster-display-name": "testing",
-						"name": "testing",
-					},
+					labels,
 					nil,
 				)).ToNot(HaveOccurred())
 
diff --git a/e2e/metrics/clustergroup_test.go b/e2e/metrics/clustergroup_test.go
index 0c0a31a1f4..9035da9683 100644
--- a/e2e/metrics/clustergroup_test.go
+++ b/e2e/metrics/clustergroup_test.go
@@ -45,6 +45,10 @@ var _ = Describe("Cluster Metrics", Label("clustergroup"), func() {
 			"test-cluster-group",
 			rand.NewSource(time.Now().UnixNano()),
 		)
+		labels := make(map[string]string)
+		if shard != "" {
+			labels["fleet.cattle.io/shard"] = shard
+		}
 		err := testenv.CreateClusterGroup(
 			k,
 			namespace,
@@ -52,6 +56,7 @@ var _ = Describe("Cluster Metrics", Label("clustergroup"), func() {
 			map[string]string{
 				"name": "local",
 			},
+			labels,
 		)
 		Expect(err).ToNot(HaveOccurred())
 
diff --git a/e2e/metrics/exporter.go b/e2e/metrics/exporter.go
index 9d1af3047d..5759c3efe1 100644
--- a/e2e/metrics/exporter.go
+++ b/e2e/metrics/exporter.go
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ func (m *ExporterTest) FindOneMetric(
 	// check if name exists.
 	mf, ok := allMetrics[name]
 	if !ok {
-		return nil, fmt.Errorf("metric %q not found", name)
+		return nil, fmt.Errorf("metric %q not found for URL %v", name, m.url)
 	}
 
 	var metrics []*dto.Metric
diff --git a/e2e/metrics/gitrepo_test.go b/e2e/metrics/gitrepo_test.go
index 63470bd33d..5c76a3443d 100644
--- a/e2e/metrics/gitrepo_test.go
+++ b/e2e/metrics/gitrepo_test.go
@@ -14,15 +14,13 @@ import (
 )
 
 var _ = Describe("GitRepo Metrics", Label("gitrepo"), func() {
-	const (
-		objName = "metrics"
-		branch  = "master"
-	)
 
 	var (
 		// kw is the kubectl command for namespace the workload is deployed to
 		kw        kubectl.Command
 		namespace string
+		objName   = "metrics"
+		branch    = "master"
 	)
 
 	BeforeEach(func() {
@@ -41,6 +39,7 @@ var _ = Describe("GitRepo Metrics", Label("gitrepo"), func() {
 			namespace,
 			objName,
 			branch,
+			shard,
 			"simple-manifest",
 		)
 		Expect(err).ToNot(HaveOccurred())
@@ -87,8 +86,8 @@ var _ = Describe("GitRepo Metrics", Label("gitrepo"), func() {
 			}).ShouldNot(HaveOccurred())
 		})
 
-		Context("when the GitRepo is changed", func() {
-			It("it should not duplicate metrics if GitRepo is updated", func() {
+		When("the GitRepo is changed", func() {
+			It("it should not duplicate metrics", func() {
 				out, err := kw.Patch(
 					"gitrepo", objName,
 					"--type=json",
diff --git a/e2e/metrics/suite_test.go b/e2e/metrics/suite_test.go
index 1f51588982..8b67d7880d 100644
--- a/e2e/metrics/suite_test.go
+++ b/e2e/metrics/suite_test.go
@@ -23,23 +23,35 @@ func TestE2E(t *testing.T) {
 var (
 	env *testenv.Env
 	// k is the kubectl command for the cluster registration namespace
-	k                kubectl.Command
-	et               metrics.ExporterTest
-	loadBalancerName string
+	k     kubectl.Command
+	et    metrics.ExporterTest
+	shard string
 )
 
-func setupLoadBalancer() (metricsURL string) {
+type ServiceData struct {
+	Name           string
+	Port           int64
+	IsDefaultShard bool
+	Shard          string
+}
+
+// setupLoadBalancer creates a load balancer service for the fleet controller.
+// If shard is empty, it creates a service for the default (unsharded)
+// controller.
+func setupLoadBalancer(shard string) (metricsURL string) {
 	rs := rand.NewSource(time.Now().UnixNano())
 	port := rs.Int63()%1000 + 30000
-	loadBalancerName = testenv.AddRandomSuffix("fleetcontroller", rs)
+	loadBalancerName := testenv.AddRandomSuffix("fleetcontroller", rs)
 
 	ks := k.Namespace("cattle-fleet-system")
 	err := testenv.ApplyTemplate(
 		ks,
 		testenv.AssetPath("metrics/fleetcontroller_service.yaml"),
-		map[string]interface{}{
-			"Name": loadBalancerName,
-			"Port": port,
+		ServiceData{
+			Name:           loadBalancerName,
+			Port:           port,
+			IsDefaultShard: shard == "",
+			Shard:          shard,
 		},
 	)
 	Expect(err).ToNot(HaveOccurred())
@@ -53,12 +65,12 @@ func setupLoadBalancer() (metricsURL string) {
 		return ip, err
 	}).ShouldNot(BeEmpty())
 
-	return
-}
+	DeferCleanup(func() {
+		ks := k.Namespace("cattle-fleet-system")
+		_, _ = ks.Delete("service", loadBalancerName)
+	})
 
-func tearDownLoadBalancer() {
-	ks := k.Namespace("cattle-fleet-system")
-	_, _ = ks.Delete("service", loadBalancerName)
+	return metricsURL
 }
 
 var _ = BeforeSuite(func() {
@@ -66,19 +78,20 @@ var _ = BeforeSuite(func() {
 	SetDefaultEventuallyPollingInterval(time.Second)
 	testenv.SetRoot("../..")
 
+	if os.Getenv("SHARD") != "" {
+		shard = os.Getenv("SHARD")
+	}
+
+	// Enable passing the metrics URL via environment solely for debugging
+	// purposes, e.g. when a fleetcontroller is run outside the cluster. This is
+	// not intended for regular use.
 	var metricsURL string
 	if os.Getenv("METRICS_URL") != "" {
 		metricsURL = os.Getenv("METRICS_URL")
 	} else {
-		metricsURL = setupLoadBalancer()
+		metricsURL = setupLoadBalancer(shard)
 	}
 	et = metrics.NewExporterTest(metricsURL)
 
 	env = testenv.New()
 })
-
-var _ = AfterSuite(func() {
-	if os.Getenv("METRICS_URL") == "" {
-		tearDownLoadBalancer()
-	}
-})
diff --git a/e2e/single-cluster/values_from_test.go b/e2e/single-cluster/values_from_test.go
index e2506372e7..0bed024e9e 100644
--- a/e2e/single-cluster/values_from_test.go
+++ b/e2e/single-cluster/values_from_test.go
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ var _ = Describe("ValuesFrom", func() {
 			"--from-file=values.yaml="+testenv.AssetPath("single-cluster/values-from-configmap.yaml"))
 		Expect(err).ToNot(HaveOccurred(), out)
 
-		err = testenv.CreateGitRepo(k, namespace, "values-from", "master", "helm-values-from")
+		err = testenv.CreateGitRepo(k, namespace, "values-from", "master", "", "helm-values-from")
 		Expect(err).ToNot(HaveOccurred())
 
 		DeferCleanup(func() {
diff --git a/e2e/testenv/template.go b/e2e/testenv/template.go
index 88b8288723..240f7f1f11 100644
--- a/e2e/testenv/template.go
+++ b/e2e/testenv/template.go
@@ -19,21 +19,31 @@ const clusterTemplate = "cluster-template.yaml"
 const clustergroupTemplate = "clustergroup-template.yaml"
 
 // GitRepoData can be used with the gitrepo-template.yaml asset when no custom
-// GitRepo properties are required. All fields are required.
+// GitRepo properties are required. All fields except Shard are required.
 type GitRepoData struct {
 	Name            string
 	Branch          string
 	Paths           []string
 	TargetNamespace string
+	Shard           string
 }
 
-// CreateGitRepo uses the template to create a gitrepo resource. The namespace is the TargetNamespace for the workloads.
-func CreateGitRepo(k kubectl.Command, namespace string, name string, branch string, paths ...string) error {
+// CreateGitRepo uses the template to create a gitrepo resource. The namespace
+// is the TargetNamespace for the workloads.
+func CreateGitRepo(
+	k kubectl.Command,
+	namespace string,
+	name string,
+	branch string,
+	shard string,
+	paths ...string,
+) error {
 	return ApplyTemplate(k, AssetPath(gitrepoTemplate), GitRepoData{
 		TargetNamespace: namespace,
 		Name:            name,
 		Branch:          branch,
 		Paths:           paths,
+		Shard:           shard,
 	})
 }
 
@@ -57,12 +67,14 @@ func CreateClusterGroup(
 	k kubectl.Command,
 	namespace,
 	name string,
+	matchLabels map[string]string,
 	labels map[string]string,
 ) error {
 	return ApplyTemplate(k, AssetPath(clustergroupTemplate), map[string]interface{}{
 		"Name":        name,
 		"Namespace":   namespace,
-		"MatchLabels": labels,
+		"MatchLabels": matchLabels,
+		"Labels":      labels,
 	})
 }