diff --git a/build-wasm.log b/build-wasm.log
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..a409358a6be3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/build-wasm.log
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+> if (!requireNamespace("pak", quietly = TRUE)) install.packages("pak", repos = "https://cloud.r-project.org"); if (!requireNamespace("rwasm", quietly = TRUE)) pak::pak("r-wasm/rwasm"); rwasm::build(".")
+Error in if (startsWith(url, "file:")) "internal" else "libcurl" : 
+  missing value where TRUE/FALSE needed
+Calls: <Anonymous> -> make_remote_tarball -> download.file
+Execution halted
diff --git a/ci/scripts/r_wasm_test.cjs b/ci/scripts/r_wasm_test.cjs
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..ccc6cb393bad
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ci/scripts/r_wasm_test.cjs
@@ -0,0 +1,165 @@
+// Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+// or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+// distributed with this work for additional information
+// regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+// to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+// "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+// with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+//
+//   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+//
+// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+// software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+// "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+// KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+// specific language governing permissions and limitations
+// under the License.
+
+// Smoke-test the arrow R package under webR, then run the testthat suite.
+// Called by r_wasm_test.sh. Requires env vars:
+//   ARROW_WASM_REPO_DIR - local CRAN-like repo with the arrow .tgz
+//   ARROW_R_TESTS_DIR   - path to tests/testthat in the source tree
+
+const { WebR } = require("webr");
+const http = require("http");
+const fs = require("fs");
+const path = require("path");
+
+const repoDir = process.env.ARROW_WASM_REPO_DIR;
+if (!repoDir) {
+  console.error("ERROR: ARROW_WASM_REPO_DIR not set");
+  process.exit(1);
+}
+
+const testsDir = process.env.ARROW_R_TESTS_DIR;
+if (!testsDir) {
+  console.error("ERROR: ARROW_R_TESTS_DIR not set");
+  process.exit(1);
+}
+
+function listFilesRecursive(dir) {
+  const results = [];
+  for (const entry of fs.readdirSync(dir, { withFileTypes: true })) {
+    const full = path.join(dir, entry.name);
+    if (entry.isDirectory()) {
+      results.push(...listFilesRecursive(full));
+    } else {
+      results.push(full);
+    }
+  }
+  return results;
+}
+
+async function main() {
+  // Serve the repo over HTTP (webR can't access the host filesystem directly)
+  const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
+    const filePath = path.join(repoDir, decodeURIComponent(req.url));
+    if (!filePath.startsWith(path.resolve(repoDir))) {
+      res.writeHead(403);
+      res.end();
+      return;
+    }
+    fs.readFile(filePath, (err, data) => {
+      if (err) {
+        res.writeHead(404);
+        res.end();
+      } else {
+        res.writeHead(200);
+        res.end(data);
+      }
+    });
+  });
+  server.listen(8080);
+  console.log("✓ Repo server on :8080");
+
+  const webR = new WebR({ RArgs: ["--quiet"], interactive: false });
+  await webR.init();
+  console.log("✓ webR initialized");
+
+  // Upload test files to webR VFS (rwasm doesn't include tests in binaries)
+  const vfsTestDir = "/tmp/arrow-tests";
+  await webR.FS.mkdir(vfsTestDir);
+  const testFiles = listFilesRecursive(testsDir);
+  const createdDirs = new Set([vfsTestDir]);
+  for (const file of testFiles) {
+    const rel = path.relative(testsDir, file);
+    const vfsPath = path.posix.join(vfsTestDir, rel.split(path.sep).join("/"));
+    const vfsDir = path.posix.dirname(vfsPath);
+    if (!createdDirs.has(vfsDir)) {
+      await webR.evalRVoid(`dir.create("${vfsDir}", recursive=TRUE, showWarnings=FALSE)`);
+      createdDirs.add(vfsDir);
+    }
+    await webR.FS.writeFile(vfsPath, fs.readFileSync(file));
+  }
+  console.log(`✓ Uploaded ${testFiles.length} test files to VFS`);
+
+  // Install arrow from local repo, deps from r-wasm.org
+  await webR.installPackages(["arrow"], {
+    repos: ["http://localhost:8080", "https://repo.r-wasm.org"],
+    quiet: false,
+    mount: false,
+  });
+  console.log("✓ arrow installed");
+
+  // Install test deps parsed from DESCRIPTION
+  const depsList = await webR.evalRString(`
+    desc <- read.dcf(system.file("DESCRIPTION", package = "arrow"),
+                     fields = c("Imports", "Suggests"))
+    pkgs <- unlist(strsplit(paste(na.omit(desc[1,]), collapse = ","), ",\\\\s*"))
+    pkgs <- trimws(sub("\\\\s*\\\\(.*\\\\)", "", pkgs))
+    pkgs <- pkgs[pkgs != "" & pkgs != "R"]
+    pkgs <- pkgs[!pkgs %in% loadedNamespaces()]
+    paste(pkgs, collapse = "\\n")
+  `);
+  const testDeps = depsList.split("\n").filter(Boolean);
+  console.log(`Installing ${testDeps.length} dependencies from DESCRIPTION...`);
+  await webR.installPackages(testDeps, {
+    repos: ["https://repo.r-wasm.org"],
+    quiet: false,
+    mount: false,
+  });
+  console.log("✓ test dependencies installed");
+
+  // Smoke test: package loads, threading disabled, basic operations work
+  const loadResult = await webR.evalRString(`
+    library(arrow)
+    cat("R.version$os =", R.version$os, "\\n")
+    stopifnot(identical(getOption("arrow.use_threads"), FALSE))
+    tab <- arrow::as_arrow_table(data.frame(x = 1:10, y = letters[1:10]))
+    stopifnot(nrow(tab) == 10L)
+    cat("Created table with", nrow(tab), "rows\\n")
+    "PASS"
+  `);
+  if (loadResult !== "PASS") {
+    throw new Error("Smoke test failed");
+  }
+  console.log("✓ Smoke test passed");
+
+  // Run testthat suite
+  console.log("Running testthat suite...");
+  const testResult = await webR.evalRString(`
+    library(testthat)
+    results <- testthat::test_dir(
+      "${vfsTestDir}",
+      reporter = "summary",
+      stop_on_failure = FALSE,
+      package = "arrow"
+    )
+    df <- as.data.frame(results)
+    cat(sprintf("Results: %d passed, %d skipped, %d failed, %d errors\\n",
+                sum(df$passed), sum(df$skipped), sum(df$failed), sum(df$error)))
+    if (sum(df$failed) > 0 || sum(df$error) > 0) "FAIL" else "PASS"
+  `);
+  if (testResult !== "PASS") {
+    throw new Error("testthat suite failed");
+  }
+  console.log("✓ testthat suite passed");
+
+  await webR.close();
+  server.close();
+}
+
+main().catch((e) => {
+  console.error("FAILED:", e);
+  process.exit(1);
+});
diff --git a/ci/scripts/r_wasm_test.sh b/ci/scripts/r_wasm_test.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000000..d50a15d4e52b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ci/scripts/r_wasm_test.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,80 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+# or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+# distributed with this work for additional information
+# regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+# with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+# software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+# "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+# KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+# specific language governing permissions and limitations
+# under the License.
+
+# Test the arrow R package built for WebAssembly.
+#
+# This script is intended to run inside the ghcr.io/r-universe-org/build-wasm
+# Docker container after rwasm::build() has produced a .tgz binary. It:
+#   1. Sets up a CRAN-like repo structure from the built .tgz
+#   2. Installs the npm webr package (Node.js webR runtime)
+#   3. Boots webR, installs arrow from the local repo, and verifies:
+#      - The package can be installed and loaded
+#      - Multithreading is disabled (arrow.use_threads == FALSE)
+#      - The testthat test suite runs
+#
+# Tests that require threading are automatically skipped via
+# skip_if_not(CanRunWithCapturedR()) since CanRunWithCapturedR() returns
+# FALSE under Emscripten.
+#
+# Usage:
+#   r_wasm_test.sh <path-to-arrow-r-dir>
+#
+# Example:
+#   r_wasm_test.sh /work
+#
+# The arrow .tgz file(s) should already exist in <path-to-arrow-r-dir>.
+
+set -euxo pipefail
+
+SCRIPT_DIR="$(cd "$(dirname "$0")" && pwd)"
+arrow_r_dir="${1:-.}"
+
+# Set up a fake CRAN-like repo so we can install the package
+tgz_file=$(ls "${arrow_r_dir}"/arrow_*.tgz 2>/dev/null | head -1)
+if [ -z "${tgz_file}" ]; then
+  echo "ERROR: No arrow_*.tgz found in ${arrow_r_dir}" >&2
+  exit 1
+fi
+echo "Found Wasm binary: ${tgz_file}"
+
+repo_dir=$(mktemp -d)
+# TODO: Not sure if we need this
+# Cover multiple R minor versions in case the npm webr package
+# uses a different R version than the Docker image's build R.
+for r_ver in 4.4 4.5 4.6; do
+  contrib_dir="${repo_dir}/bin/emscripten/contrib/${r_ver}"
+  mkdir -p "${contrib_dir}"
+  cp "${tgz_file}" "${contrib_dir}/"
+  # type=mac.binary matches .tgz file extension
+  R -q -e "tools::write_PACKAGES('${contrib_dir}', type = 'mac.binary')"
+done
+
+echo "Repo structure:"
+find "${repo_dir}" -type f
+
+# Install webr in a temporary node project
+work_dir=$(mktemp -d)
+cd "${work_dir}"
+npm init -y > /dev/null 2>&1
+npm install --silent webr 2>/dev/null
+
+# Run our test script
+ARROW_WASM_REPO_DIR="${repo_dir}" ARROW_R_TESTS_DIR="${arrow_r_dir}/tests/testthat" NODE_PATH="${work_dir}/node_modules" node "${SCRIPT_DIR}/r_wasm_test.cjs"
+
+# Cleanup temp dirs
+rm -rf "${work_dir}" "${repo_dir}"
diff --git a/cpp/src/arrow/vendored/datetime/visibility.h b/cpp/src/arrow/vendored/datetime/visibility.h
index 780c00d70bd9..492d189a0397 100644
--- a/cpp/src/arrow/vendored/datetime/visibility.h
+++ b/cpp/src/arrow/vendored/datetime/visibility.h
@@ -21,6 +21,12 @@
 #  define USE_OS_TZDB 1
 #endif
 
+#ifdef __EMSCRIPTEN__
+// Emscripten has no OS timezone database and no curl, so disable both.
+#  undef USE_OS_TZDB
+#  define HAS_REMOTE_API 0
+#endif
+
 #if defined(ARROW_STATIC)
 // intentially empty
 #elif defined(ARROW_EXPORTING)
diff --git a/dev/tasks/r/github.linux.r-wasm.yml b/dev/tasks/r/github.linux.r-wasm.yml
index ee38740bb47d..542be91d9e7b 100644
--- a/dev/tasks/r/github.linux.r-wasm.yml
+++ b/dev/tasks/r/github.linux.r-wasm.yml
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@
 
 jobs:
   r-universe-wasm:
-    name: "R-universe Wasm build"
+    name: "R-universe Wasm build and test"
     runs-on: ubuntu-latest
     timeout-minutes: 60
 
@@ -56,6 +56,15 @@ jobs:
                 2>&1 | tee build-wasm.log
             '
 
+      - name: Smoke-test arrow in webR
+        shell: bash
+        run: |
+          docker run --rm \
+            -v "${PWD}/arrow:/arrow" \
+            -w /tmp \
+            ghcr.io/r-universe-org/build-wasm:latest \
+            bash /arrow/ci/scripts/r_wasm_test.sh /arrow/r
+
       - name: List generated artifacts
         if: always()
         shell: bash
diff --git a/r/R/arrow-package.R b/r/R/arrow-package.R
index 2706faee5cb1..179bc1945c30 100644
--- a/r/R/arrow-package.R
+++ b/r/R/arrow-package.R
@@ -150,6 +150,13 @@ s3_finalizer <- new.env(parent = emptyenv())
   # needs the C++ library loaded
   create_binding_cache()
 
+  if (identical(R.version$os, "emscripten")) {
+    # Disable multithreading on Wasm/Emscripten
+    options(arrow.use_threads = FALSE)
+    # No system tzdata on Emscripten; use the tzdb R package
+    configure_tzdb()
+  }
+
   if (tolower(Sys.info()[["sysname"]]) == "windows") {
     # Disable multithreading on Windows
     # See https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/ARROW-8379
@@ -188,8 +195,7 @@ configure_tzdb <- function() {
       error = function(e) {
         packageStartupMessage(
           "The tzdb package was available but failed to initialize: ",
-          e,
-          "Timezones will not be available to Arrow compute functions."
+          e
         )
       }
     )
diff --git a/r/run-wasm-build-and-test.sh b/r/run-wasm-build-and-test.sh
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..d89530b310c8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/r/run-wasm-build-and-test.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+# Build and test the Arrow R package for WebAssembly locally,
+# replicating the test-r-wasm crossbow job exactly.
+#
+# Usage: bash r/run-wasm-build-and-test.sh
+# Run from the repo root.
+
+set -euxo pipefail
+
+cd "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)/r"
+
+# Step 1: sync C++ source and build R source tarball (done on host, not in Docker)
+make sync-cpp
+R CMD build --no-build-vignettes .
+
+# Step 2: build Wasm binary inside the R-universe container
+docker run --rm \
+  -v "${PWD}:/work" \
+  -w /work \
+  ghcr.io/r-universe-org/build-wasm:latest \
+  bash -lc '
+    set -euxo pipefail
+    R -q -e "if (!requireNamespace(\"pak\", quietly = TRUE)) install.packages(\"pak\", repos = \"https://cloud.r-project.org\"); if (!requireNamespace(\"rwasm\", quietly = TRUE)) pak::pak(\"r-wasm/rwasm\"); rwasm::build(\".\")" \
+      2>&1 | tee build-wasm.log
+  '
+
+# Step 3: run the test suite inside the R-universe container
+ARROW_ROOT="$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)"
+docker run --rm \
+  -v "${ARROW_ROOT}:/arrow" \
+  -w /tmp \
+  ghcr.io/r-universe-org/build-wasm:latest \
+  bash /arrow/ci/scripts/r_wasm_test.sh /arrow/r
diff --git a/r/src/safe-call-into-r-impl.cpp b/r/src/safe-call-into-r-impl.cpp
index c2fa1e1eac6b..bb3530cb0021 100644
--- a/r/src/safe-call-into-r-impl.cpp
+++ b/r/src/safe-call-into-r-impl.cpp
@@ -45,7 +45,16 @@ bool SetEnableSignalStopSource(bool enabled) {
 }
 
 // [[arrow::export]]
-bool CanRunWithCapturedR() { return MainRThread::GetInstance().Executor() == nullptr; }
+bool CanRunWithCapturedR() {
+#ifdef __EMSCRIPTEN__
+  // Threading is not supported under Emscripten/WASM. Always take the
+  // synchronous path to avoid attempting pthread_create which will fail
+  // with "thread constructor failed: Not supported".
+  return false;
+#else
+  return MainRThread::GetInstance().Executor() == nullptr;
+#endif
+}
 
 // [[arrow::export]]
 std::string TestSafeCallIntoR(cpp11::function r_fun_that_returns_a_string,
diff --git a/r/tests/testthat/helper-skip.R b/r/tests/testthat/helper-skip.R
index 133b03798813..ed2bfae0dbb7 100644
--- a/r/tests/testthat/helper-skip.R
+++ b/r/tests/testthat/helper-skip.R
@@ -101,6 +101,14 @@ skip_on_linux_devel <- function() {
   }
 }
 
+skip_on_emscripten <- function() {
+  if (force_tests()) {
+    return()
+  }
+
+  skip_if(identical(R.version$os, "emscripten"), "Not supported on Emscripten")
+}
+
 skip_on_r_older_than <- function(r_version) {
   if (force_tests()) {
     return()
diff --git a/r/tests/testthat/test-dataset-dplyr.R b/r/tests/testthat/test-dataset-dplyr.R
index 09ca0ef155b7..a755ecebbd66 100644
--- a/r/tests/testthat/test-dataset-dplyr.R
+++ b/r/tests/testthat/test-dataset-dplyr.R
@@ -70,6 +70,7 @@ test_that("filter() with %in%", {
 })
 
 test_that("filter() on timestamp columns", {
+  # skip_on_emscripten()  # TODO: remove if timezone fix (visibility.h) works
   skip_if_not_available("re2")
 
   ds <- open_dataset(dataset_dir, partitioning = schema(part = uint8()))
@@ -119,6 +120,7 @@ test_that("filter() on date32 columns", {
   )
 
   skip_if_not_available("re2")
+  # skip_on_emscripten()  # TODO: remove if timezone fix (visibility.h) works
 
   # Also with timestamp scalar
   expect_equal(
diff --git a/r/tests/testthat/test-dplyr-arrange.R b/r/tests/testthat/test-dplyr-arrange.R
index d502a7f040a1..2412bbd2e1e8 100644
--- a/r/tests/testthat/test-dplyr-arrange.R
+++ b/r/tests/testthat/test-dplyr-arrange.R
@@ -238,6 +238,7 @@ test_that("Can use across() within arrange()", {
       collect(),
     example_data
   )
+  # skip_on_emscripten() # TODO: Unrelated to timezone fix; passing a bare function (desc) to across() .fns fails on Emscripten
   compare_dplyr_binding(
     .input |>
       arrange(across(starts_with("d"), desc)) |>
diff --git a/r/tests/testthat/test-dplyr-filter.R b/r/tests/testthat/test-dplyr-filter.R
index ad69b26be798..fe7c84c80a8d 100644
--- a/r/tests/testthat/test-dplyr-filter.R
+++ b/r/tests/testthat/test-dplyr-filter.R
@@ -25,7 +25,11 @@ tbl <- example_data
 tbl$verses <- verses[[1]]
 # c(" a ", "  b  ", "   c   ", ...) increasing padding
 # nchar =   3  5  7  9 11 13 15 17 19 21
-tbl$padded_strings <- stringr::str_pad(letters[1:10], width = 2 * (1:10) + 1, side = "both")
+tbl$padded_strings <- stringr::str_pad(
+  letters[1:10],
+  width = 2 * (1:10) + 1,
+  side = "both"
+)
 tbl$some_negative <- tbl$int * (-1)^(1:nrow(tbl)) # nolint
 
 test_that("filter() on is.na()", {
@@ -415,6 +419,8 @@ test_that("filter() with namespaced functions", {
 })
 
 test_that("filter() with across()", {
+  #  skip_on_emscripten() # TODO: Remove if timezone fix works
+
   compare_dplyr_binding(
     .input |>
       filter(if_any(ends_with("l"), ~ is.na(.))) |>
diff --git a/r/tests/testthat/test-dplyr-query.R b/r/tests/testthat/test-dplyr-query.R
index 53864a166337..257e9dabe317 100644
--- a/r/tests/testthat/test-dplyr-query.R
+++ b/r/tests/testthat/test-dplyr-query.R
@@ -646,6 +646,7 @@ test_that("Scalars in expressions match the type of the field, if possible", {
   # it merges.
   # https://github.com/r-hub/rhub-linux-builders/pull/65
   skip_if(identical(Sys.timezone(), "/UTC"))
+  # skip_on_emscripten()  # TODO: remove if timezone fix (visibility.h) works
 
   expect_output(
     tab |>
diff --git a/r/tools/nixlibs.R b/r/tools/nixlibs.R
index ba705e03ad7e..2a8a7821f1c7 100644
--- a/r/tools/nixlibs.R
+++ b/r/tools/nixlibs.R
@@ -527,6 +527,10 @@ build_libarrow <- function(src_dir, dst_dir) {
   # CRAN policy says not to use more than 2 cores during checks
   # If you have more and want to use more, set MAKEFLAGS or NOT_CRAN
   ncores <- parallel::detectCores()
+  # detectCores() returns NA in some environments under emscripten, handle it
+  if (is.na(ncores)) {
+    ncores <- 1L
+  }
   if (!not_cran) {
     ncores <- min(ncores, 2)
   }