diff --git a/docs/api-guide/filtering.md b/docs/api-guide/filtering.md
index e65c6bf4f..6f4648cfd 100644
--- a/docs/api-guide/filtering.md
+++ b/docs/api-guide/filtering.md
@@ -260,6 +260,7 @@ The search behavior may be restricted by prepending various characters to the `s
 * '^' Starts-with search.
 * '=' Exact matches.
 * '@' Full-text search.  (Currently only supported Django's MySQL backend.)
+* '$' Regex search.
 
 For example:
 
diff --git a/rest_framework/filters.py b/rest_framework/filters.py
index e05d31ae3..931263670 100644
--- a/rest_framework/filters.py
+++ b/rest_framework/filters.py
@@ -94,6 +94,8 @@ class SearchFilter(BaseFilterBackend):
             return "%s__iexact" % field_name[1:]
         elif field_name.startswith('@'):
             return "%s__search" % field_name[1:]
+        if field_name.startswith('$'):
+            return "%s__iregex" % field_name[1:]
         else:
             return "%s__icontains" % field_name
 
diff --git a/tests/test_filters.py b/tests/test_filters.py
index 9db685c28..0610b0855 100644
--- a/tests/test_filters.py
+++ b/tests/test_filters.py
@@ -407,6 +407,23 @@ class SearchFilterTests(TestCase):
             ]
         )
 
+    def test_regexp_search(self):
+        class SearchListView(generics.ListAPIView):
+            queryset = SearchFilterModel.objects.all()
+            serializer_class = SearchFilterSerializer
+            filter_backends = (filters.SearchFilter,)
+            search_fields = ('$title', '$text')
+
+        view = SearchListView.as_view()
+        request = factory.get('/', {'search': 'z{2} ^b'})
+        response = view(request)
+        self.assertEqual(
+            response.data,
+            [
+                {'id': 2, 'title': 'zz', 'text': 'bcd'}
+            ]
+        )
+
     def test_search_with_nonstandard_search_param(self):
         with override_settings(REST_FRAMEWORK={'SEARCH_PARAM': 'query'}):
             reload_module(filters)