diff --git a/sql/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/execution/aggregate/HashAggregateExec.scala b/sql/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/execution/aggregate/HashAggregateExec.scala
index 4529ed067e56..0eee4f31196a 100644
--- a/sql/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/execution/aggregate/HashAggregateExec.scala
+++ b/sql/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/execution/aggregate/HashAggregateExec.scala
@@ -295,6 +295,11 @@ case class HashAggregateExec(
   private var hashMapTerm: String = _
   private var sorterTerm: String = _
 
+  // Becasue Dataset.show/take methods will end of iteraton before reaching the end of all rows,
+  // we may not release resources then and cause memory leak. So we need to hold the reference
+  // of the hash map if it is created and release the resources after task completion.
+  private var hashMapToRelease: UnsafeFixedWidthAggregationMap = _
+
   /**
    * This is called by generated Java class, should be public.
    */
@@ -302,17 +307,23 @@ case class HashAggregateExec(
     // create initialized aggregate buffer
     val initExpr = declFunctions.flatMap(f => f.initialValues)
     val initialBuffer = UnsafeProjection.create(initExpr)(EmptyRow)
+    val context = TaskContext.get()
 
     // create hashMap
-    new UnsafeFixedWidthAggregationMap(
+    hashMapToRelease = new UnsafeFixedWidthAggregationMap(
       initialBuffer,
       bufferSchema,
       groupingKeySchema,
-      TaskContext.get().taskMemoryManager(),
+      context.taskMemoryManager(),
       1024 * 16, // initial capacity
-      TaskContext.get().taskMemoryManager().pageSizeBytes,
+      context.taskMemoryManager().pageSizeBytes,
       false // disable tracking of performance metrics
     )
+
+    // Release the resources of the hash map when the end of task.
+    context.addTaskCompletionListener(_ => hashMapToRelease.free())
+
+    hashMapToRelease
   }
 
   def getTaskMemoryManager(): TaskMemoryManager = {
diff --git a/sql/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/DatasetSuite.scala b/sql/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/DatasetSuite.scala
index 81fa8cbf2238..37732ff6271f 100644
--- a/sql/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/DatasetSuite.scala
+++ b/sql/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/DatasetSuite.scala
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ import org.apache.spark.sql.execution.streaming.MemoryStream
 import org.apache.spark.sql.functions._
 import org.apache.spark.sql.internal.SQLConf
 import org.apache.spark.sql.test.SharedSQLContext
-import org.apache.spark.sql.types.{IntegerType, StringType, StructField, StructType}
+import org.apache.spark.sql.types.{DataTypes, IntegerType, StringType, StructField, StructType}
 
 class DatasetSuite extends QueryTest with SharedSQLContext {
   import testImplicits._
@@ -1051,6 +1051,20 @@ class DatasetSuite extends QueryTest with SharedSQLContext {
     checkDataset(dsDouble, arrayDouble)
     checkDataset(dsString, arrayString)
   }
+
+  test("SPARK-18487: Add completion listener to HashAggregate to avoid memory leak") {
+    val rng = new scala.util.Random(42)
+    val data = sparkContext.parallelize(Seq.tabulate(100) { i =>
+      Row(Array.fill(10)(rng.nextInt(10)))
+    })
+    val schema = StructType(Seq(
+      StructField("arr", DataTypes.createArrayType(DataTypes.IntegerType))
+    ))
+    val df = spark.createDataFrame(data, schema)
+    val exploded = df.select(struct(col("*")).as("star"), explode(col("arr")).as("a"))
+    val joined = exploded.join(exploded, "a").drop("a").distinct()
+    joined.show()
+  }
 }
 
 case class Generic[T](id: T, value: Double)