diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.15.2.txt b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.15.2.txt
index 58dc1da214c05..409ef8bee3662 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.15.2.txt
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.15.2.txt
@@ -164,6 +164,7 @@ Bug Fixes
 - Bug in ``merge`` where ``how='left'`` and ``sort=False`` would not preserve left frame order (:issue:`7331`)
 - Fix: The font size was only set on x axis if vertical or the y axis if horizontal. (:issue:`8765`)
 - Fixed division by 0 when reading big csv files in python 3 (:issue:`8621`)
+- When using usecols csv reader only requires the minimum amount of columns instead of all (:issue:`8985`)
 
 
 
diff --git a/pandas/io/parsers.py b/pandas/io/parsers.py
index b23aa017138e1..e858b4bf0ced4 100644
--- a/pandas/io/parsers.py
+++ b/pandas/io/parsers.py
@@ -1918,9 +1918,17 @@ def _rows_to_cols(self, content):
         # Loop through rows to verify lengths are correct.
         if col_len != zip_len and self.index_col is not False:
             i = 0
+            incorrect_row = False
+            if self.usecols:
+                col_len = max(self.usecols) + 1
+
             for (i, l) in enumerate(content):
                 if len(l) != col_len:
-                    break
+                    if self.usecols and len(l) > col_len:
+                        continue
+                    else:
+                        incorrect_row = True
+                        break
 
             footers = 0
             if self.skip_footer:
@@ -1930,7 +1938,8 @@ def _rows_to_cols(self, content):
 
             msg = ('Expected %d fields in line %d, saw %d' %
                    (col_len, row_num + 1, zip_len))
-            raise ValueError(msg)
+            if incorrect_row:
+                raise ValueError(msg)
 
         if self.usecols:
             if self._implicit_index:
diff --git a/pandas/io/tests/test_parsers.py b/pandas/io/tests/test_parsers.py
index 2f211ab0381a2..e510b95bb094e 100644
--- a/pandas/io/tests/test_parsers.py
+++ b/pandas/io/tests/test_parsers.py
@@ -2090,6 +2090,23 @@ def test_parse_integers_above_fp_precision(self):
 
         self.assertTrue(np.array_equal(result['Numbers'], expected['Numbers']))
 
+    def test_use_cols_minumum_fields_in_line(self):
+        # issue #8985
+        data = """
+19,29,39
+19,29,39
+10,20,30,40"""
+        df = pd.read_csv(StringIO(data), engine='python',
+                         header=None, usecols=list(range(3)))
+        self.assertEqual(len(df.columns), 3)
+
+        df = pd.read_csv(StringIO(data), engine='python',
+                         header=None, usecols=list(range(2)))
+        self.assertEqual(len(df.columns), 2)
+
+        self.assertRaises(ValueError, self.read_csv, StringIO(data),
+                          engine='python', usecols=list(range(4)), header=None)
+
     def test_usecols_index_col_conflict(self):
         # Issue 4201  Test that index_col as integer reflects usecols
         data = """SecId,Time,Price,P2,P3