diff --git a/pandas/tests/arrays/sparse/test_astype.py b/pandas/tests/arrays/sparse/test_astype.py
index d729a31668ade..86d69610059b3 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/arrays/sparse/test_astype.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/arrays/sparse/test_astype.py
@@ -3,7 +3,11 @@
 
 from pandas._libs.sparse import IntIndex
 
-from pandas import Timestamp
+from pandas import (
+    DataFrame,
+    Series,
+    Timestamp,
+)
 import pandas._testing as tm
 from pandas.core.arrays.sparse import (
     SparseArray,
@@ -131,3 +135,13 @@ def test_astype_dt64_to_int64(self):
         arr3 = SparseArray(values, dtype=dtype)
         result3 = arr3.astype("int64")
         tm.assert_numpy_array_equal(result3, expected)
+
+
+def test_dtype_sparse_with_fill_value_not_present_in_data():
+    # GH 49987
+    df = DataFrame([["a", 0], ["b", 1], ["b", 2]], columns=["A", "B"])
+    result = df["A"].astype(SparseDtype("category", fill_value="c"))
+    expected = Series(
+        ["a", "b", "b"], name="A", dtype=SparseDtype("object", fill_value="c")
+    )
+    tm.assert_series_equal(result, expected)