diff --git a/R/pkg/inst/tests/testthat/test_sparkSQL.R b/R/pkg/inst/tests/testthat/test_sparkSQL.R
index 3a987cd86213f..b4b43fdba42ce 100644
--- a/R/pkg/inst/tests/testthat/test_sparkSQL.R
+++ b/R/pkg/inst/tests/testthat/test_sparkSQL.R
@@ -390,6 +390,19 @@ test_that("create DataFrame with different data types", {
   expect_equal(collect(df), data.frame(l, stringsAsFactors = FALSE))
 })
 
+test_that("SPARK-17811: can create DataFrame containing NA as date and time", {
+  df <- data.frame(
+    id = 1:2,
+    time = c(as.POSIXlt("2016-01-10"), NA),
+    date = c(as.Date("2016-10-01"), NA))
+
+  DF <- collect(createDataFrame(df))
+  expect_true(is.na(DF$date[2]))
+  expect_equal(DF$date[1], as.Date("2016-10-01"))
+  expect_true(is.na(DF$time[2]))
+  expect_equal(DF$time[1], as.POSIXlt("2016-01-10"))
+})
+
 test_that("create DataFrame with complex types", {
   e <- new.env()
   assign("n", 3L, envir = e)
diff --git a/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/api/r/SerDe.scala b/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/api/r/SerDe.scala
index e4932a4192d39..550e075a95129 100644
--- a/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/api/r/SerDe.scala
+++ b/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/api/r/SerDe.scala
@@ -125,15 +125,34 @@ private[spark] object SerDe {
   }
 
   def readDate(in: DataInputStream): Date = {
-    Date.valueOf(readString(in))
+    try {
+      val inStr = readString(in)
+      if (inStr == "NA") {
+        null
+      } else {
+        Date.valueOf(inStr)
+      }
+    } catch {
+      // TODO: SPARK-18011 with some versions of R deserializing NA from R results in NASE
+      case _: NegativeArraySizeException => null
+    }
   }
 
   def readTime(in: DataInputStream): Timestamp = {
-    val seconds = in.readDouble()
-    val sec = Math.floor(seconds).toLong
-    val t = new Timestamp(sec * 1000L)
-    t.setNanos(((seconds - sec) * 1e9).toInt)
-    t
+    try {
+      val seconds = in.readDouble()
+      if (java.lang.Double.isNaN(seconds)) {
+        null
+      } else {
+        val sec = Math.floor(seconds).toLong
+        val t = new Timestamp(sec * 1000L)
+        t.setNanos(((seconds - sec) * 1e9).toInt)
+        t
+      }
+    } catch {
+      // TODO: SPARK-18011 with some versions of R deserializing NA from R results in NASE
+      case _: NegativeArraySizeException => null
+    }
   }
 
   def readBytesArr(in: DataInputStream): Array[Array[Byte]] = {