diff --git a/pandas/core/categorical.py b/pandas/core/categorical.py
index 17435dfc48bde..530a3ecb5f378 100644
--- a/pandas/core/categorical.py
+++ b/pandas/core/categorical.py
@@ -5,3 +5,4 @@
               FutureWarning, stacklevel=2)
 
 from pandas.core.arrays import Categorical  # noqa
+from pandas.core.dtypes.dtypes import CategoricalDtype  # noqa
diff --git a/pandas/tests/api/test_api.py b/pandas/tests/api/test_api.py
index 4a10ed6e7402c..c20767b09178c 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/api/test_api.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/api/test_api.py
@@ -259,3 +259,8 @@ def test_categorical_move(self):
 
         with tm.assert_produces_warning(FutureWarning):
             from pandas.core.categorical import Categorical  # noqa
+
+        sys.modules.pop("pandas.core.categorical", None)
+
+        with tm.assert_produces_warning(FutureWarning):
+            from pandas.core.categorical import CategoricalDtype  # noqa