diff --git a/modules/dnn/src/darknet/darknet_io.cpp b/modules/dnn/src/darknet/darknet_io.cpp
index f6d71fd6d4967d615ec86a827461688e8857a178..e3c978a8c0cf5e4a30ed46626523c7eaa50cad66 100644
--- a/modules/dnn/src/darknet/darknet_io.cpp
+++ b/modules/dnn/src/darknet/darknet_io.cpp
@@ -241,6 +241,10 @@ namespace cv {
                     {
                         activation_param.type = "Sigmoid";
                     }
+                    else if (type == "tanh")
+                    {
+                        activation_param.type = "TanH";
+                    }
                     else
                     {
                         CV_Error(cv::Error::StsParseError, "Unsupported activation: " + type);
diff --git a/modules/dnn/test/test_darknet_importer.cpp b/modules/dnn/test/test_darknet_importer.cpp
index 0ecec8c49b206388631f95bbfb709a4d0ee23544..00638f83c50d33214cbc340372f05bb98d66dc81 100644
--- a/modules/dnn/test/test_darknet_importer.cpp
+++ b/modules/dnn/test/test_darknet_importer.cpp
@@ -702,6 +702,11 @@ TEST_P(Test_Darknet_layers, mish)
     testDarknetLayer("mish", true);
 }
 
+TEST_P(Test_Darknet_layers, tanh)
+{
+    testDarknetLayer("tanh");
+}
+
 TEST_P(Test_Darknet_layers, avgpool_softmax)
 {
     testDarknetLayer("avgpool_softmax");