diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index 55d407732..e1153c3e5 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -3028,6 +3028,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "memchr",
  "thiserror",
  "tor-circmgr",
+ "tor-error",
  "tor-llcrypto",
  "tor-netdoc",
  "tor-proto",
diff --git a/crates/tor-dirclient/Cargo.toml b/crates/tor-dirclient/Cargo.toml
index 43e67eaac..353d71c03 100644
--- a/crates/tor-dirclient/Cargo.toml
+++ b/crates/tor-dirclient/Cargo.toml
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ routerdesc = []
 
 [dependencies]
 tor-circmgr = { path="../tor-circmgr", version = "0.0.4"}
+tor-error = { path="../tor-error", version = "0.0.1"}
 tor-llcrypto = { path="../tor-llcrypto", version = "0.0.3"}
 tor-proto = { path="../tor-proto", version = "0.0.4"}
 tor-netdoc = { path="../tor-netdoc", version = "0.0.4"}
diff --git a/crates/tor-dirclient/src/err.rs b/crates/tor-dirclient/src/err.rs
index 825e84a9f..1812124c3 100644
--- a/crates/tor-dirclient/src/err.rs
+++ b/crates/tor-dirclient/src/err.rs
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
 use std::sync::Arc;
 
 use thiserror::Error;
+use tor_error::{ErrorKind, HasKind};
 use tor_rtcompat::TimeoutError;
 
 /// An error originating from the tor-dirclient crate.
@@ -81,3 +82,26 @@ impl Error {
         true
     }
 }
+
+impl HasKind for Error {
+    fn kind(&self) -> ErrorKind {
+        use Error as E;
+        use ErrorKind as EK;
+        match self {
+            E::DirTimeout => EK::ExitTimeout,
+            E::TruncatedHeaders => EK::TorProtocolViolation,
+            E::HttpStatus(_) => EK::RemoteRefused,
+            E::ResponseTooLong(_) => EK::TorProtocolViolation,
+            E::Utf8Encoding(_) => EK::TorProtocolViolation,
+            // TODO: it would be good to get more information out of the IoError
+            // in this case, but that would require a bunch of gnarly
+            // downcasting.
+            E::IoError(_) => EK::RemoteStreamError,
+            E::Proto(e) => e.kind(),
+            E::CircMgr(e) => e.kind(),
+            E::HttparseError(_) => EK::TorProtocolViolation,
+            E::HttpError(_) => EK::Internal,
+            E::ContentEncoding(_) => EK::TorProtocolViolation,
+        }
+    }
+}