diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/RFormula.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/RFormula.scala
index 2ee899bcca564..389898666eb8e 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/RFormula.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/RFormula.scala
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ import org.apache.spark.annotation.{Experimental, Since}
 import org.apache.spark.ml.{Estimator, Model, Pipeline, PipelineModel, PipelineStage, Transformer}
 import org.apache.spark.ml.attribute.AttributeGroup
 import org.apache.spark.ml.linalg.VectorUDT
-import org.apache.spark.ml.param.{Param, ParamMap}
+import org.apache.spark.ml.param.{BooleanParam, Param, ParamMap}
 import org.apache.spark.ml.param.shared.{HasFeaturesCol, HasLabelCol}
 import org.apache.spark.ml.util._
 import org.apache.spark.sql.{DataFrame, Dataset}
@@ -104,6 +104,27 @@ class RFormula @Since("1.5.0") (@Since("1.5.0") override val uid: String)
   @Since("1.5.0")
   def setLabelCol(value: String): this.type = set(labelCol, value)
 
+  /**
+   * Force to index label whether it is numeric or string type.
+   * Usually we index label only when it is string type.
+   * If the formula was used by classification algorithms,
+   * we can force to index label even it is numeric type by setting this param with true.
+   * Default: false.
+   * @group param
+   */
+  @Since("2.1.0")
+  val forceIndexLabel: BooleanParam = new BooleanParam(this, "forceIndexLabel",
+    "Force to index label whether it is numeric or string")
+  setDefault(forceIndexLabel -> false)
+
+  /** @group getParam */
+  @Since("2.1.0")
+  def getForceIndexLabel: Boolean = $(forceIndexLabel)
+
+  /** @group setParam */
+  @Since("2.1.0")
+  def setForceIndexLabel(value: Boolean): this.type = set(forceIndexLabel, value)
+
   /** Whether the formula specifies fitting an intercept. */
   private[ml] def hasIntercept: Boolean = {
     require(isDefined(formula), "Formula must be defined first.")
@@ -167,8 +188,8 @@ class RFormula @Since("1.5.0") (@Since("1.5.0") override val uid: String)
     encoderStages += new VectorAttributeRewriter($(featuresCol), prefixesToRewrite.toMap)
     encoderStages += new ColumnPruner(tempColumns.toSet)
 
-    if (dataset.schema.fieldNames.contains(resolvedFormula.label) &&
-      dataset.schema(resolvedFormula.label).dataType == StringType) {
+    if ((dataset.schema.fieldNames.contains(resolvedFormula.label) &&
+      dataset.schema(resolvedFormula.label).dataType == StringType) || $(forceIndexLabel)) {
       encoderStages += new StringIndexer()
         .setInputCol(resolvedFormula.label)
         .setOutputCol($(labelCol))
@@ -181,6 +202,8 @@ class RFormula @Since("1.5.0") (@Since("1.5.0") override val uid: String)
   @Since("1.5.0")
   // optimistic schema; does not contain any ML attributes
   override def transformSchema(schema: StructType): StructType = {
+    require(!hasLabelCol(schema) || !$(forceIndexLabel),
+      "If label column already exists, forceIndexLabel can not be set with true.")
     if (hasLabelCol(schema)) {
       StructType(schema.fields :+ StructField($(featuresCol), new VectorUDT, true))
     } else {
diff --git a/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/RFormulaSuite.scala b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/RFormulaSuite.scala
index 97c268f3d5c97..c664460d7d8bb 100644
--- a/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/RFormulaSuite.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/RFormulaSuite.scala
@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ class RFormulaSuite extends SparkFunSuite with MLlibTestSparkContext with Defaul
     }
   }
 
-  test("label column already exists") {
+  test("label column already exists and forceIndexLabel was set with false") {
     val formula = new RFormula().setFormula("y ~ x").setLabelCol("y")
     val original = Seq((0, 1.0), (2, 2.0)).toDF("x", "y")
     val model = formula.fit(original)
@@ -66,6 +66,14 @@ class RFormulaSuite extends SparkFunSuite with MLlibTestSparkContext with Defaul
     assert(resultSchema.toString == model.transform(original).schema.toString)
   }
 
+  test("label column already exists but forceIndexLabel was set with true") {
+    val formula = new RFormula().setFormula("y ~ x").setLabelCol("y").setForceIndexLabel(true)
+    val original = spark.createDataFrame(Seq((0, 1.0), (2, 2.0))).toDF("x", "y")
+    intercept[IllegalArgumentException] {
+      formula.fit(original)
+    }
+  }
+
   test("label column already exists but is not numeric type") {
     val formula = new RFormula().setFormula("y ~ x").setLabelCol("y")
     val original = Seq((0, true), (2, false)).toDF("x", "y")
@@ -137,6 +145,23 @@ class RFormulaSuite extends SparkFunSuite with MLlibTestSparkContext with Defaul
     assert(result.collect() === expected.collect())
   }
 
+  test("force to index label even it is numeric type") {
+    val formula = new RFormula().setFormula("id ~ a + b").setForceIndexLabel(true)
+    val original = spark.createDataFrame(
+      Seq((1.0, "foo", 4), (1.0, "bar", 4), (0.0, "bar", 5), (1.0, "baz", 5))
+    ).toDF("id", "a", "b")
+    val model = formula.fit(original)
+    val result = model.transform(original)
+    val expected = spark.createDataFrame(
+      Seq(
+        (1.0, "foo", 4, Vectors.dense(0.0, 1.0, 4.0), 0.0),
+        (1.0, "bar", 4, Vectors.dense(1.0, 0.0, 4.0), 0.0),
+        (0.0, "bar", 5, Vectors.dense(1.0, 0.0, 5.0), 1.0),
+        (1.0, "baz", 5, Vectors.dense(0.0, 0.0, 5.0), 0.0))
+    ).toDF("id", "a", "b", "features", "label")
+    assert(result.collect() === expected.collect())
+  }
+
   test("attribute generation") {
     val formula = new RFormula().setFormula("id ~ a + b")
     val original = Seq((1, "foo", 4), (2, "bar", 4), (3, "bar", 5), (4, "baz", 5))