diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.18.2.txt b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.18.2.txt
index 64644bd9a7a26..ac5fceb672809 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.18.2.txt
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.18.2.txt
@@ -223,6 +223,7 @@ Other enhancements
 - A ``union_categorical`` function has been added for combining categoricals, see :ref:`Unioning Categoricals<categorical.union>` (:issue:`13361`)
 - ``eval``'s upcasting rules for ``float32`` types have been updated to be more consistent with NumPy's rules.  New behavior will not upcast to ``float64`` if you multiply a pandas ``float32`` object by a scalar float64. (:issue:`12388`)
 - ``Series`` has gained the properties ``.is_monotonic``, ``.is_monotonic_increasing``, ``.is_monotonic_decreasing``, similar to ``Index`` (:issue:`13336`)
+- The ``.get_credentials()`` method of ``GbqConnector`` can now first try to fetch the default credentials for Google Compute Engine without the need to run ``OAuth2WebServerFlow`` - if private_key is not provided (:issue:`13577`)
 
 .. _whatsnew_0182.api:
 
diff --git a/pandas/io/gbq.py b/pandas/io/gbq.py
index 140f5cc6bb6e3..c26d8431ffe57 100644
--- a/pandas/io/gbq.py
+++ b/pandas/io/gbq.py
@@ -159,7 +159,33 @@ def get_credentials(self):
         if self.private_key:
             return self.get_service_account_credentials()
         else:
-            return self.get_user_account_credentials()
+            # Try to retrieve Application Default Credentials
+            credentials = self.get_application_default_credentials()
+            if not credentials:
+                credentials = self.get_user_account_credentials()
+            return credentials
+
+    def get_application_default_credentials(self):
+        from oauth2client.client import GoogleCredentials
+        from oauth2client.client import AccessTokenRefreshError
+        from oauth2client.client import ApplicationDefaultCredentialsError
+        from apiclient.discovery import build
+        from apiclient.errors import HttpError
+
+        credentials = None
+        try:
+            credentials = GoogleCredentials.get_application_default()
+        except ApplicationDefaultCredentialsError:
+            return None
+        # Check if the application has rights to the BigQuery project
+        bigquery_service = build('bigquery', 'v2', credentials=credentials)
+        job_collection = bigquery_service.jobs()
+        job_data = {'configuration': {'query': {'query': 'SELECT 1'}}}
+        try:
+            job_collection.insert(projectId=self.project_id, body=job_data).execute()
+        except (AccessTokenRefreshError, HttpError):
+            return None
+        return credentials
 
     def get_user_account_credentials(self):
         from oauth2client.client import OAuth2WebServerFlow
@@ -576,7 +602,9 @@ def read_gbq(query, project_id=None, index_col=None, col_order=None,
     https://developers.google.com/api-client-library/python/apis/bigquery/v2
 
     Authentication to the Google BigQuery service is via OAuth 2.0.
-    By default user account credentials are used. You will be asked to
+    By default "application default credentials" are used.
+    If default application credentials are not found or are restrictive -
+    User account credentials are used. You will be asked to
     grant permissions for product name 'pandas GBQ'. It is also posible
     to authenticate via service account credentials by using
     private_key parameter.
@@ -672,7 +700,9 @@ def to_gbq(dataframe, destination_table, project_id, chunksize=10000,
     https://developers.google.com/api-client-library/python/apis/bigquery/v2
 
     Authentication to the Google BigQuery service is via OAuth 2.0.
-    By default user account credentials are used. You will be asked to
+    By default "application default credentials" are used.
+    If default application credentials are not found or are restrictive -
+    User account credentials are used. You will be asked to
     grant permissions for product name 'pandas GBQ'. It is also posible
     to authenticate via service account credentials by using
     private_key parameter.
diff --git a/pandas/io/tests/test_gbq.py b/pandas/io/tests/test_gbq.py
index 278c5d7215624..0cbf682480678 100644
--- a/pandas/io/tests/test_gbq.py
+++ b/pandas/io/tests/test_gbq.py
@@ -80,8 +80,10 @@ def _test_imports():
                 from apiclient.discovery import build  # noqa
                 from apiclient.errors import HttpError  # noqa
 
+            from oauth2client.client import GoogleCredentials  # noqa
             from oauth2client.client import OAuth2WebServerFlow  # noqa
             from oauth2client.client import AccessTokenRefreshError  # noqa
+            from oauth2client.client import ApplicationDefaultCredentialsError # noqa
 
             from oauth2client.file import Storage  # noqa
             from oauth2client.tools import run_flow  # noqa