diff --git a/pandas/io/parsers.py b/pandas/io/parsers.py
index c427d3a198b10..bb5e0fca92189 100644
--- a/pandas/io/parsers.py
+++ b/pandas/io/parsers.py
@@ -1654,7 +1654,7 @@ def _maybe_dedup_names(self, names):
 
     def _maybe_make_multi_index_columns(self, columns, col_names=None):
         # possibly create a column mi here
-        if _is_potential_multi_index(columns):
+        if _is_potential_multi_index(columns, self.index_col):
             columns = MultiIndex.from_tuples(columns, names=col_names)
         return columns