diff --git a/CHANGELOG.rst b/CHANGELOG.rst
index b2508572c..7dc610eaa 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.rst
+++ b/CHANGELOG.rst
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ Interactive improvements
 - The default command-not-found handler now reports a special error if there is a non-executable file (:issue:`8804`)
 - ``less`` and other interactive commands would occasionally be stopped when run in a pipeline with fish functions; this has been fixed (:issue:`8699`).
 - Case-changing autosuggestions generated mid-token now correctly append only the suffix, instead of duplicating the token (:issue:`8820`).
-- ``ulimit`` learned a number of new options for the resource limits available on Linux, FreeBSD and NetBSD (:issue:`8786`).
+- ``ulimit`` learned a number of new options for the resource limits available on Linux, FreeBSD and NetBSD, and returns a specific warning if the limit specified is not available on the active operating system (:issue:`8823`).
 
 New or improved bindings
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
diff --git a/src/builtins/ulimit.cpp b/src/builtins/ulimit.cpp
index 0c7f1af85..fc96a81bc 100644
--- a/src/builtins/ulimit.cpp
+++ b/src/builtins/ulimit.cpp
@@ -76,6 +76,10 @@ static const struct resource_t resource_arr[] = {
 #endif
     {0, nullptr, 0, 0}};
 
+/// This is likely to be the same as RLIMIT_INFINITY, but it shouldn't get used
+/// in the same context (that is, compared to the result of a getrlimit call).
+#define RLIMIT_UNKNOWN -1
+
 /// Get the implicit multiplication factor for the specified resource limit.
 static int get_multiplier(int what) {
     for (int i = 0; resource_arr[i].desc; i++) {
@@ -232,12 +236,14 @@ maybe_t<int> builtin_ulimit(parser_t &parser, io_streams_t &streams, const wchar
                 soft = true;
                 break;
             }
-#ifdef RLIMIT_SBSIZE
             case 'b': {
+#ifdef RLIMIT_SBSIZE
                 what = RLIMIT_SBSIZE;
+#else
+                what = RLIMIT_UNKNOWN;
+#endif
                 break;
             }
-#endif
             case 'c': {
                 what = RLIMIT_CORE;
                 break;
@@ -246,50 +252,62 @@ maybe_t<int> builtin_ulimit(parser_t &parser, io_streams_t &streams, const wchar
                 what = RLIMIT_DATA;
                 break;
             }
-#ifdef RLIMIT_NICE
             case 'e': {
+#ifdef RLIMIT_NICE
                 what = RLIMIT_NICE;
+#else
+                what = RLIMIT_UNKNOWN;
+#endif
                 break;
             }
-#endif
             case 'f': {
                 what = RLIMIT_FSIZE;
                 break;
             }
-#ifdef RLIMIT_SIGPENDING
             case 'i': {
+#ifdef RLIMIT_SIGPENDING
                 what = RLIMIT_SIGPENDING;
+#else
+                what = RLIMIT_UNKNOWN;
+#endif
                 break;
             }
-#endif
-#ifdef RLIMIT_MEMLOCK
             case 'l': {
+#ifdef RLIMIT_MEMLOCK
                 what = RLIMIT_MEMLOCK;
+#else
+                what = RLIMIT_UNKNOWN;
+#endif
                 break;
             }
-#endif
-#ifdef RLIMIT_RSS
             case 'm': {
+#ifdef RLIMIT_RSS
                 what = RLIMIT_RSS;
+#else
+                what = RLIMIT_UNKNOWN;
+#endif
                 break;
             }
-#endif
             case 'n': {
                 what = RLIMIT_NOFILE;
                 break;
             }
-#ifdef RLIMIT_MSGQUEUE
             case 'q': {
+#ifdef RLIMIT_MSGQUEUE
                 what = RLIMIT_MSGQUEUE;
+#else
+                what = RLIMIT_UNKNOWN;
+#endif
                 break;
             }
-#endif
-#ifdef RLIMIT_RTPRIO
             case 'r': {
+#ifdef RLIMIT_RTPRIO
                 what = RLIMIT_RTPRIO;
+#else
+                what = RLIMIT_UNKNOWN;
+#endif
                 break;
             }
-#endif
             case 's': {
                 what = RLIMIT_STACK;
                 break;
@@ -298,48 +316,62 @@ maybe_t<int> builtin_ulimit(parser_t &parser, io_streams_t &streams, const wchar
                 what = RLIMIT_CPU;
                 break;
             }
-#ifdef RLIMIT_NPROC
             case 'u': {
+#ifdef RLIMIT_NPROC
                 what = RLIMIT_NPROC;
+#else
+                what = RLIMIT_UNKNOWN;
+#endif
                 break;
             }
-#endif
-#ifdef RLIMIT_AS
             case 'v': {
+#ifdef RLIMIT_AS
                 what = RLIMIT_AS;
+#else
+                what = RLIMIT_UNKNOWN;
+#endif
                 break;
             }
-#endif
-#ifdef RLIMIT_SWAP
             case 'w': {
+#ifdef RLIMIT_SWAP
                 what = RLIMIT_SWAP;
+#else
+                what = RLIMIT_UNKNOWN;
+#endif
                 break;
             }
-#endif
-#ifdef RLIMIT_RTTIME
             case 'y': {
+#ifdef RLIMIT_RTTIME
                 what = RLIMIT_RTTIME;
+#else
+                what = RLIMIT_UNKNOWN;
+#endif
                 break;
             }
-#endif
-#ifdef RLIMIT_KQUEUES
             case 'K': {
+#ifdef RLIMIT_KQUEUES
                 what = RLIMIT_KQUEUES;
+#else
+                what = RLIMIT_UNKNOWN;
+#endif
                 break;
             }
-#endif
-#ifdef RLIMIT_NPTS
             case 'P': {
+#ifdef RLIMIT_NPTS
                 what = RLIMIT_NPTS;
+#else
+                what = RLIMIT_UNKNOWN;
+#endif
                 break;
             }
-#endif
-#ifdef RLIMIT_NTHR
             case 'T': {
+#ifdef RLIMIT_NTHR
                 what = RLIMIT_NTHR;
+#else
+                what = RLIMIT_UNKNOWN;
+#endif
                 break;
             }
-#endif
             case 'h': {
                 builtin_print_help(parser, streams, cmd);
                 return STATUS_CMD_OK;
@@ -363,6 +395,12 @@ maybe_t<int> builtin_ulimit(parser_t &parser, io_streams_t &streams, const wchar
         return STATUS_CMD_OK;
     }
 
+    if (what == RLIMIT_UNKNOWN) {
+        streams.err.append_format(_(L"%ls: Resource limit not available on this operating system\n"), cmd);
+        builtin_print_error_trailer(parser, streams.err, cmd);
+        return STATUS_INVALID_ARGS;
+    }
+
     int arg_count = argc - w.woptind;
     if (arg_count == 0) {
         // Show current limit value.