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I'm trying to figure out how to set the connection timeout in create_engine() , so far I've tried:

create_engine(url, timeout=10)
  
TypeError: Invalid argument(s) 'timeout' sent to create_engine(), using configuration PGDialect_psycopg2/QueuePool/Engine.  Please check
  that the keyword arguments are appropriate for this combination of
  components.
create_engine(url, connection_timeout=10)
  
TypeError: Invalid argument(s) 'connection_timeout' sent to
  create_engine(), using configuration
  PGDialect_psycopg2/QueuePool/Engine.  Please check that the keyword
  arguments are appropriate for this combination of components.
create_engine(db_url, connect_args={'timeout': 10})
  
(psycopg2.OperationalError) invalid connection option
  "timeout"
create_engine(db_url, connect_args={'connection_timeout': 10})
  
(psycopg2.OperationalError) invalid connection option
  "connection_timeout"
create_engine(url, pool_timeout=10)
What should I do?
The right way is this one (connect_timeout instead of connection_timeout):
create_engine(db_url, connect_args={'connect_timeout': 10})
...and it works with both Postgres and MySQL
docs sqlalchemy connect-args
ps: (the timeout is defined in seconds)
                What is the default value for the connect_timeout variable (in general and specific to MySQL database?
– nivhanin
                Nov 22, 2016 at 12:45
For whoever is using Flask-SQLAlchemy instead of plain SQLAlchemy, you can choose between two ways for passing values to SQLAlchemy's create_engine:
Use SQLALCHEMY_ENGINE_OPTIONS configuration key (Flask-SQLAlchemy>=2.4 required)
SQLALCHEMY_ENGINE_OPTIONS = {
    'connect_args': {
        'connect_timeout': 5
Or, in alternative, use engine_option when instantiating flask_sqlalchemy.SQLAlchemy
from flask import Flask
from flask_sqlalchemy import SQLAlchemy
app = Flask(__name__)
db = SQLAlchemy(
    engine_options={ 'connect_args': { 'connect_timeout': 5 }}
db.init_app(app)
EDIT: The examples are using the connect_timeout argument that works (at least) for MySQL and PostgreSQL (value represent seconds), other DBMS may require different argument name to be passed to affect the connection timeout.  I suggest to check your DBMS manual to check for such option.
In response to comment below by @nivhanin which asks "What is the default value for the connect_timeout variable (in general and specific to MySQL database?"? (I don't have enough reputation to leave comments).
Default for connect_timeout for Mysql5.7 is 10 seconds
Also maybe relevant:
wait_timeout -- default value of 28800 seconds (8 hours)
interactive_timeout -- default value of 28800 seconds (8 hours)
for SQL Server use the Remote Query Timeout:
create_engine(db_url, connect_args={'Remote Query Timeout': 10})
default is 5 seconds.
                Do you have a source for the default timeout being 5 seconds? As far as I can see in the docs, the default is 600 seconds, which is more in line with the kinds of errors I'm getting in my application.
– Mihai Chelaru
                Jan 16, 2020 at 14:48
For a db2 backend via ibm_db2_sa + pyodbc:
I looked through the source code, and there seems to be no way to control the connection timeout as of version 0.3.5 (2019/05/30):
https://github.com/ibmdb/python-ibmdbsa
I'm posting this to save others the trouble of looking.
I tried to do this for binded mssql+pyodbc database and default sqlite and couldn't make any of above work.
What finally worked for me, was
SQLALCHEMY_ENGINE_OPTIONS = {
        'connect_args': {"timeout": 10}
This is consistent with SQLAlchemy docs as well
                TypeError: 'timeout' is an invalid keyword argument for this function it doen't work on oracle
– TomSawyer
                Jan 23, 2022 at 18:26
UPDATE: for SQL Server use 'remote login timeout':
create_engine(db_url, connect_args={'remote login timeout': 10})
Thomasleveil posted on Jun 21, but it was buried in the comments, and was the only version that worked for me.
        
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