diff --git a/CHANGELOG.asciidoc b/CHANGELOG.asciidoc
index 43e286b3788..9cde2b1fde8 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.asciidoc
+++ b/CHANGELOG.asciidoc
@@ -54,6 +54,7 @@ https://github.com/elastic/beats/compare/v7.0.0-alpha2...master[Check the HEAD d
 
 - Enforce validation for the Central Management access token. {issue}9621[9621]
 - Allow to unenroll a Beat from the UI. {issue}9452[9452]
+- Fix exclude_labels when there are dotted keys {pull}10154[10154]
 
 *Auditbeat*
 
diff --git a/libbeat/common/kubernetes/metadata.go b/libbeat/common/kubernetes/metadata.go
index 391d617a8f9..d9698daad99 100644
--- a/libbeat/common/kubernetes/metadata.go
+++ b/libbeat/common/kubernetes/metadata.go
@@ -87,7 +87,7 @@ func (g *metaGenerator) ResourceMetadata(obj Resource) common.MapStr {
 
 	// Exclude any labels that are present in the exclude_labels config
 	for _, label := range g.ExcludeLabels {
-		delete(labelMap, label)
+		labelMap.Delete(label)
 	}
 
 	annotationsMap := generateMapSubset(objMeta.Annotations, g.IncludeAnnotations, g.AnnotationsDedot)