diff --git a/tensorflow/contrib/tpu/python/tpu/tpu_estimator.py b/tensorflow/contrib/tpu/python/tpu/tpu_estimator.py
index e001d866c3550af109eb41e7f0e625d10319e296..193d14e1ce89c31d78370d944f76d85364bbeebb 100644
--- a/tensorflow/contrib/tpu/python/tpu/tpu_estimator.py
+++ b/tensorflow/contrib/tpu/python/tpu/tpu_estimator.py
@@ -360,6 +360,12 @@ def _call_model_fn(model_fn, features, labels, mode, config, params,
   """Calls the model_fn with required parameters."""
   model_fn_args = util.fn_args(model_fn)
   kwargs = {}
+  if 'labels' in model_fn_args:
+    kwargs['labels'] = labels
+  else:
+    if labels is not None:
+      raise ValueError(
+          'model_fn does not take labels, but input_fn returns labels.')
   if 'mode' in model_fn_args:
     kwargs['mode'] = mode
   if 'config' in model_fn_args:
@@ -371,7 +377,7 @@ def _call_model_fn(model_fn, features, labels, mode, config, params,
         'model_fn ({}) does not include params argument, '
         'required by TPUEstimator to pass batch size as '
         'params[\'batch_size\']'.format(model_fn))
-  return model_fn(features=features, labels=labels, **kwargs)
+  return model_fn(features=features, **kwargs)
 
 
 def _call_model_fn_with_tpu(model_fn, features, labels, mode, config, params):