diff --git a/docs/api-guide/fields.md b/docs/api-guide/fields.md
index 8d25d6c78..1da58d2ee 100644
--- a/docs/api-guide/fields.md
+++ b/docs/api-guide/fields.md
@@ -153,6 +153,7 @@ Corresponds to `django.db.models.fields.CharField` or `django.db.models.fields.T
 - `max_length` - Validates that the input contains no more than this number of characters.
 - `min_length` - Validates that the input contains no fewer than this number of characters.
 - `allow_blank` - If set to `True` then the empty string should be considered a valid value. If set to `False` then the empty string is considered invalid and will raise a validation error. Defaults to `False`.
+- `allow_null_bytes` - If set to `False`, strings containing NULL bytes will be rejected. You may want to set this to `False` if the string is saved to a database. Defaults to `True`.
 - `trim_whitespace` - If set to `True` then leading and trailing whitespace is trimmed. Defaults to `True`.
 
 The `allow_null` option is also available for string fields, although its usage is discouraged in favor of `allow_blank`. It is valid to set both `allow_blank=True` and `allow_null=True`, but doing so means that there will be two differing types of empty value permissible for string representations, which can lead to data inconsistencies and subtle application bugs.
diff --git a/rest_framework/fields.py b/rest_framework/fields.py
index 3278cf51c..fa6771f45 100644
--- a/rest_framework/fields.py
+++ b/rest_framework/fields.py
@@ -754,12 +754,14 @@ class CharField(Field):
         'invalid': _('Not a valid string.'),
         'blank': _('This field may not be blank.'),
         'max_length': _('Ensure this field has no more than {max_length} characters.'),
-        'min_length': _('Ensure this field has at least {min_length} characters.')
+        'min_length': _('Ensure this field has at least {min_length} characters.'),
+        'nulls': _('This field may not include NULL bytes.'),
     }
     initial = ''
 
     def __init__(self, **kwargs):
         self.allow_blank = kwargs.pop('allow_blank', False)
+        self.allow_null_bytes = kwargs.pop('allow_null_bytes', True)
         self.trim_whitespace = kwargs.pop('trim_whitespace', True)
         self.max_length = kwargs.pop('max_length', None)
         self.min_length = kwargs.pop('min_length', None)
@@ -785,6 +787,8 @@ class CharField(Field):
             if not self.allow_blank:
                 self.fail('blank')
             return ''
+        if not self.allow_null_bytes and '\0' in six.text_type(data):
+            self.fail('nulls')
         return super(CharField, self).run_validation(data)
 
     def to_internal_value(self, data):
diff --git a/tests/test_fields.py b/tests/test_fields.py
index aa3391a72..067a2e4b4 100644
--- a/tests/test_fields.py
+++ b/tests/test_fields.py
@@ -718,6 +718,21 @@ class TestCharField(FieldValues):
             field.run_validation('   ')
         assert exc_info.value.detail == ['This field may not be blank.']
 
+    def test_allow_null_bytes(self):
+        field = serializers.CharField(allow_null_bytes=True)
+        for value in ('\0', 'foo\0', '\0foo', 'foo\0foo'):
+            field.run_validation(value)
+
+    def test_disallow_null_bytes(self):
+        field = serializers.CharField(allow_null_bytes=False)
+
+        for value in ('\0', 'foo\0', '\0foo', 'foo\0foo'):
+            with pytest.raises(serializers.ValidationError) as exc_info:
+                field.run_validation(value)
+            assert exc_info.value.detail == [
+                serializers.CharField.default_error_messages['nulls']
+            ]
+
 
 class TestEmailField(FieldValues):
     """