diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 7a26d3f836..7562212808 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ Versions with only mechanical changes will be omitted from the following list.
 * Add support for microseconds timestamps serde serialization for `NaiveDateTime`.
 * Add support for optional timestamps serde serialization for `NaiveDateTime`.
 * Fix build for wasm32-unknown-emscripten (@yu-re-ka #593)
+* Make `ParseErrorKind` public and available through `ParseError::kind()` (#588)
 * Implement `DoubleEndedIterator` for `NaiveDateDaysIterator` and `NaiveDateWeeksIterator`
 * Fix panicking when parsing a `DateTime` (@botahamec)
 
diff --git a/src/format/mod.rs b/src/format/mod.rs
index 893496a035..2089c4c06a 100644
--- a/src/format/mod.rs
+++ b/src/format/mod.rs
@@ -336,9 +336,16 @@ macro_rules! internal_fix {
 #[derive(Debug, Clone, PartialEq, Eq, Copy)]
 pub struct ParseError(ParseErrorKind);
 
+impl ParseError {
+    /// The category of parse error
+    pub fn kind(&self) -> ParseErrorKind {
+        self.0
+    }
+}
+
 /// The category of parse error
 #[derive(Debug, Clone, PartialEq, Eq, Copy)]
-enum ParseErrorKind {
+pub enum ParseErrorKind {
     /// Given field is out of permitted range.
     OutOfRange,
 
@@ -366,6 +373,10 @@ enum ParseErrorKind {
 
     /// There was an error on the formatting string, or there were non-supported formating items.
     BadFormat,
+
+    // TODO: Change this to `#[non_exhaustive]` (on the enum) when MSRV is increased
+    #[doc(hidden)]
+    __Nonexhaustive,
 }
 
 /// Same as `Result<T, ParseError>`.
@@ -381,6 +392,7 @@ impl fmt::Display for ParseError {
             ParseErrorKind::TooShort => write!(f, "premature end of input"),
             ParseErrorKind::TooLong => write!(f, "trailing input"),
             ParseErrorKind::BadFormat => write!(f, "bad or unsupported format string"),
+            _ => unreachable!(),
         }
     }
 }