The present solution is directed to a system for handling network interface card (NIC) congestion by a NIC aware application. The system may include a device having a plurality of network interface cards (NICs), a transmission queue corresponding to a NIC of the plurality of NICs; and an overflow queue for storing packets for the NIC when congested. The system may also include an application executing on the device outputting a plurality of packets to the transmission queue responsive to detecting that the NIC is identified as not congested. The device identifies the NIC as congested responsive to determining that a number of packets stored in the transmission queue has reached a predetermined threshold and responsive to detecting identification of the NIC as congested, the application stores one or more packets to the overflow queue. The device transmits one or more of the plurality of packets stored in the transmission queue and transmits a predetermined number of packets from the overflow queue.