diff --git a/CHANGELOG.rst b/CHANGELOG.rst
index c69ede37dd..6f24301dfe 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.rst
+++ b/CHANGELOG.rst
@@ -41,6 +41,8 @@ Fixed
 
   Contributed by @guzzijones
 
+* StackStorm now explicitly decodes pack files as utf-8 instead of implicitly as ascii (bug fix) #5106
+
 Removed
 ~~~~~~~~
 * Removed check-licence script (cleanup) #5092
diff --git a/st2common/st2common/content/loader.py b/st2common/st2common/content/loader.py
index 3baa1e767b..efd9a2c005 100644
--- a/st2common/st2common/content/loader.py
+++ b/st2common/st2common/content/loader.py
@@ -243,7 +243,7 @@ def load(self, file_path, expected_type=None):
         return result
 
     def _load(self, parser_func, file_path):
-        with open(file_path, 'r') as fd:
+        with open(file_path, 'r', encoding='utf-8') as fd:
             try:
                 return parser_func(fd)
             except ValueError: