diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.25.0.rst b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.25.0.rst
index 9afcf3ddcdbb1..3e00ec9cbb742 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.25.0.rst
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.25.0.rst
@@ -390,6 +390,7 @@ Groupby/Resample/Rolling
 - Bug in :meth:`pandas.core.groupby.GroupBy.idxmax` and :meth:`pandas.core.groupby.GroupBy.idxmin` with datetime column would return incorrect dtype (:issue:`25444`, :issue:`15306`)
 - Bug in :meth:`pandas.core.groupby.GroupBy.cumsum`, :meth:`pandas.core.groupby.GroupBy.cumprod`, :meth:`pandas.core.groupby.GroupBy.cummin` and :meth:`pandas.core.groupby.GroupBy.cummax` with categorical column having absent categories, would return incorrect result or segfault (:issue:`16771`)
 
+
 Reshaping
 ^^^^^^^^^
 
@@ -402,6 +403,7 @@ Reshaping
 - Bug in :func:`merge` where merging with equivalent Categorical dtypes was raising an error (:issue:`22501`)
 - Bug in :class:`DataFrame` constructor when passing non-empty tuples would cause a segmentation fault (:issue:`25691`)
 - Bug in :func:`pandas.cut` where large bins could incorrectly raise an error due to an integer overflow (:issue:`26045`)
+- Bug in :func:`DataFrame.sort_index` where an error is thrown when a multi-indexed DataFrame is sorted on all levels with the initial level sorted last (:issue:`26053`)
 - Bug in :meth:`Series.nlargest` treats ``True`` as smaller than ``False`` (:issue:`26154`)
 
 Sparse
diff --git a/pandas/core/indexes/multi.py b/pandas/core/indexes/multi.py
index 34413f441a5d6..1510b965ea614 100644
--- a/pandas/core/indexes/multi.py
+++ b/pandas/core/indexes/multi.py
@@ -2084,8 +2084,14 @@ def sortlevel(self, level=0, ascending=True, sort_remaining=True):
             shape = list(self.levshape)
 
             # partition codes and shape
-            primary = tuple(codes.pop(lev - i) for i, lev in enumerate(level))
-            primshp = tuple(shape.pop(lev - i) for i, lev in enumerate(level))
+            primary = tuple(codes[lev] for lev in level)
+            primshp = tuple(shape[lev] for lev in level)
+
+            # Reverse sorted to retain the order of
+            # smaller indices that needs to be removed
+            for lev in sorted(level, reverse=True):
+                codes.pop(lev)
+                shape.pop(lev)
 
             if sort_remaining:
                 primary += primary + tuple(codes)
diff --git a/pandas/tests/frame/test_sorting.py b/pandas/tests/frame/test_sorting.py
index e7d04319d173e..49e37d9ca24a3 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/frame/test_sorting.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/frame/test_sorting.py
@@ -496,11 +496,28 @@ def test_sort_index_duplicates(self):
     def test_sort_index_level(self):
         mi = MultiIndex.from_tuples([[1, 1, 3], [1, 1, 1]], names=list('ABC'))
         df = DataFrame([[1, 2], [3, 4]], mi)
-        res = df.sort_index(level='A', sort_remaining=False)
-        assert_frame_equal(df, res)
 
-        res = df.sort_index(level=['A', 'B'], sort_remaining=False)
-        assert_frame_equal(df, res)
+        result = df.sort_index(level='A', sort_remaining=False)
+        expected = df
+        assert_frame_equal(result, expected)
+
+        result = df.sort_index(level=['A', 'B'], sort_remaining=False)
+        expected = df
+        assert_frame_equal(result, expected)
+
+        # Error thrown by sort_index when
+        # first index is sorted last (#26053)
+        result = df.sort_index(level=['C', 'B', 'A'])
+        expected = df.iloc[[1, 0]]
+        assert_frame_equal(result, expected)
+
+        result = df.sort_index(level=['B', 'C', 'A'])
+        expected = df.iloc[[1, 0]]
+        assert_frame_equal(result, expected)
+
+        result = df.sort_index(level=['C', 'A'])
+        expected = df.iloc[[1, 0]]
+        assert_frame_equal(result, expected)
 
     def test_sort_index_categorical_index(self):