diff --git a/pandas/core/frame.py b/pandas/core/frame.py
index 4654ceee9896b..8c504d35a3a4f 100644
--- a/pandas/core/frame.py
+++ b/pandas/core/frame.py
@@ -2552,7 +2552,11 @@ def dropna(self, axis=0, how='any', thresh=None, subset=None,
             agg_obj = self
             if subset is not None:
                 ax = self._get_axis(agg_axis)
-                agg_obj = self.take(ax.get_indexer_for(subset),axis=agg_axis)
+                indices = ax.get_indexer_for(subset)
+                if -1 in indices :
+                    bad_keys = [col for (col,idx) in zip(subset,indices) if idx==-1]
+                    raise KeyError(bad_keys)
+                agg_obj = self.take(indices,axis=agg_axis)
 
             count = agg_obj.count(axis=agg_axis)
 
diff --git a/pandas/tests/test_frame.py b/pandas/tests/test_frame.py
index b4b8e4263ec78..26d0b0cd940e8 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/test_frame.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/test_frame.py
@@ -7183,6 +7183,8 @@ def test_dropna_corner(self):
         # bad input
         self.assertRaises(ValueError, self.frame.dropna, how='foo')
         self.assertRaises(TypeError, self.frame.dropna, how=None)
+        # non-existent column - 8303
+        self.assertRaises(KeyError, self.frame.dropna, subset=['A','X'])
 
     def test_dropna_multiple_axes(self):
         df = DataFrame([[1, np.nan, 2, 3],