diff --git a/pandas/io/tests/parser/dtypes.py b/pandas/io/tests/parser/dtypes.py
index 18c37b31f6480..b9ab79c3b9d54 100644
--- a/pandas/io/tests/parser/dtypes.py
+++ b/pandas/io/tests/parser/dtypes.py
@@ -241,6 +241,9 @@ def test_empty_dtype(self):
         result = self.read_csv(StringIO(data), header=0,
                                dtype='category')
         tm.assert_frame_equal(result, expected)
+        result = self.read_csv(StringIO(data), header=0,
+                               dtype={'a': 'category', 'b': 'category'})
+        tm.assert_frame_equal(result, expected)
 
         expected = pd.DataFrame(columns=['a', 'b'], dtype='datetime64[ns]')
         result = self.read_csv(StringIO(data), header=0,