diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.5.0.rst b/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.5.0.rst
index 9aebcad1d8cae..b316b4ff2d688 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.5.0.rst
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.5.0.rst
@@ -269,6 +269,7 @@ Indexing
 - Bug in :meth:`DataFrame.mask` with ``inplace=True`` and ``ExtensionDtype`` columns incorrectly raising (:issue:`45577`)
 - Bug in getting a column from a DataFrame with an object-dtype row index with datetime-like values: the resulting Series now preserves the exact object-dtype Index from the parent DataFrame (:issue:`42950`)
 - Bug in indexing on a :class:`DatetimeIndex` with a ``np.str_`` key incorrectly raising (:issue:`45580`)
+- Bug in :meth:`CategoricalIndex.get_indexer` when index contains ``NaN`` values, resulting in elements that are in target but not present in the index to be mapped to the index of the NaN element, instead of -1 (:issue:`45361`)
 -
 
 Missing
diff --git a/pandas/core/indexes/base.py b/pandas/core/indexes/base.py
index 99396c6986043..c37a52ddb5491 100644
--- a/pandas/core/indexes/base.py
+++ b/pandas/core/indexes/base.py
@@ -3791,6 +3791,7 @@ def get_indexer(
         tolerance=None,
     ) -> npt.NDArray[np.intp]:
         method = missing.clean_reindex_fill_method(method)
+        orig_target = target
         target = self._maybe_cast_listlike_indexer(target)
 
         self._check_indexing_method(method, limit, tolerance)
@@ -3813,9 +3814,15 @@ def get_indexer(
 
             indexer = self._engine.get_indexer(target.codes)
             if self.hasnans and target.hasnans:
+                # After _maybe_cast_listlike_indexer, target elements which do not
+                # belong to some category are changed to NaNs
+                # Mask to track actual NaN values compared to inserted NaN values
+                # GH#45361
+                target_nans = isna(orig_target)
                 loc = self.get_loc(np.nan)
                 mask = target.isna()
-                indexer[mask] = loc
+                indexer[target_nans] = loc
+                indexer[mask & ~target_nans] = -1
             return indexer
 
         if is_categorical_dtype(target.dtype):
diff --git a/pandas/tests/indexes/categorical/test_indexing.py b/pandas/tests/indexes/categorical/test_indexing.py
index 2297f8cf87209..588486452fc20 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/indexes/categorical/test_indexing.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/indexes/categorical/test_indexing.py
@@ -298,6 +298,18 @@ def test_get_indexer_same_categories_different_order(self):
         expected = np.array([1, 1], dtype="intp")
         tm.assert_numpy_array_equal(result, expected)
 
+    def test_get_indexer_nans_in_index_and_target(self):
+        # GH 45361
+        ci = CategoricalIndex([1, 2, np.nan, 3])
+        other1 = [2, 3, 4, np.nan]
+        res1 = ci.get_indexer(other1)
+        expected1 = np.array([1, 3, -1, 2], dtype=np.intp)
+        tm.assert_numpy_array_equal(res1, expected1)
+        other2 = [1, 4, 2, 3]
+        res2 = ci.get_indexer(other2)
+        expected2 = np.array([0, -1, 1, 3], dtype=np.intp)
+        tm.assert_numpy_array_equal(res2, expected2)
+
 
 class TestWhere:
     def test_where(self, listlike_box):