diff --git a/rest_framework/fields.py b/rest_framework/fields.py
index 70c210c16..b84bca015 100644
--- a/rest_framework/fields.py
+++ b/rest_framework/fields.py
@@ -1711,7 +1711,7 @@ class DictField(Field):
         # We override the default field access in order to support
         # dictionaries in HTML forms.
         if html.is_html_input(dictionary):
-            return html.parse_html_dict(dictionary, prefix=self.field_name)
+            return html.parse_html_dict(dictionary, prefix=self.field_name, default=empty)
         return dictionary.get(self.field_name, empty)
 
     def to_internal_value(self, data):