diff --git a/cpp/src/arrow/util/value_parsing_test.cc b/cpp/src/arrow/util/value_parsing_test.cc
index d55c7c9496f92..ad4de902ac1e0 100644
--- a/cpp/src/arrow/util/value_parsing_test.cc
+++ b/cpp/src/arrow/util/value_parsing_test.cc
@@ -852,7 +852,7 @@ TEST(TimestampParser, StrptimeZoneOffset) {
   // N.B. GNU %z supports ISO8601 format while BSD %z supports only
   // +HHMM or -HHMM and POSIX doesn't appear to define %z at all
   for (auto unit : TimeUnit::values()) {
-    for (const std::string value : values) {
+    for (const std::string& value : values) {
       SCOPED_TRACE(value);
       int64_t converted = 0;
       int64_t expected = 0;