diff --git a/builtin/mv.c b/builtin/mv.c
index a82fc97a19..eb59fe0f31 100644
--- a/builtin/mv.c
+++ b/builtin/mv.c
@@ -444,6 +444,27 @@ dir_check:
 			goto act_on_entry;
 		}
 
+		/*
+		* If we are going to move SRC to DST on disk, DST's leading
+		* directories must already exist.
+		*/
+		if (!(modes[i] & (INDEX | SPARSE | SKIP_WORKTREE_DIR)) &&
+				!(dst_mode & (SKIP_WORKTREE_DIR | SPARSE))) {
+				char *dst_dir = xstrdup(dst);
+				char *slash = strrchr(dst_dir, '/');
+
+				if (slash) {
+						struct stat dir_st;
+						*slash = '\0';
+						if (lstat(dst_dir, &dir_st) < 0 && errno == ENOENT) {
+								free(dst_dir);
+								bad = _("destination directory does not exist");
+								goto act_on_entry;
+						}
+				}
+				free(dst_dir);
+		}
+
 		if (ignore_sparse &&
 		    (dst_mode & (SKIP_WORKTREE_DIR | SPARSE)) &&
 		    index_entry_exists(the_repository->index, dst, strlen(dst))) {
@@ -549,7 +570,7 @@ remove_entry:
 		    rename(src, dst) < 0) {
 			if (ignore_errors)
 				continue;
-			die_errno(_("renaming '%s' failed"), src);
+			die_errno(_("renaming '%s' to '%s' failed"), src, dst);
 		}
 		if (submodule_gitfiles[i]) {
 			if (!update_path_in_gitmodules(src, dst))
diff --git a/t/t7001-mv.sh b/t/t7001-mv.sh
index 7cf4aa5ba1..2d8a98d8b0 100755
--- a/t/t7001-mv.sh
+++ b/t/t7001-mv.sh
@@ -114,6 +114,20 @@ test_expect_success 'clean up' '
 	git reset --hard
 '
 
+test_expect_success 'moving to non-existent destination parent directory' '
+	git reset --hard &&
+	mkdir -p from &&
+	echo content >from/file &&
+	git add from/file &&
+	test_must_fail git mv from/file no-such-dir/file 2>actual &&
+	test_grep "destination directory does not exist" actual
+'
+
+test_expect_success 'mv --dry-run detects non-existent destination parent directory' '
+	test_must_fail git mv -n from/file no-such-dir/file 2>actual &&
+	test_grep "destination directory does not exist" actual
+'
+
 test_expect_success 'moving to existing untracked target with trailing slash' '
 	mkdir path1 &&
 	git mv path0/ path1/ &&