diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index 1cfca0722..9673bdaa8 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -53,6 +53,7 @@ Collate:
     'digital-ocean.R'
     'find-port.R'
     'includes.R'
+    'new-rstudio-project.R'
     'paths.R'
     'plumber-static.R'
     'plumber-step.R'
@@ -64,5 +65,4 @@ Collate:
     'serializer.R'
     'session-cookie.R'
     'swagger.R'
-    'new-rstudio-project.R'
 RoxygenNote: 6.0.1
diff --git a/R/content-types.R b/R/content-types.R
index 9da895b67..a3730d0dc 100644
--- a/R/content-types.R
+++ b/R/content-types.R
@@ -50,3 +50,22 @@ getContentType <- function(ext, defaultType='application/octet-stream') {
   }
   return(ct)
 }
+
+getCharacterSet <- function(contentType){
+  default <- "UTF-8"
+  if (is.null(contentType)) {
+    return(default)
+  }
+  charsetStart <- attr(
+    gregexpr(".*charset=(.*)", contentType, perl = T)[[1]],
+    "capture.start"
+  )
+  charsetStart <- as.integer(charsetStart)
+  as.character(
+    ifelse(
+      charsetStart > -1,
+      substr(contentType, charsetStart, nchar(contentType)), 
+      default
+    )
+  )
+}
diff --git a/R/post-body.R b/R/post-body.R
index ae13a1488..8fc622eea 100644
--- a/R/post-body.R
+++ b/R/post-body.R
@@ -2,7 +2,8 @@ postBodyFilter <- function(req){
   handled <- req$.internal$postBodyHandled
   if (is.null(handled) || handled != TRUE){
     body <- req$rook.input$read_lines()
-    args <- parseBody(body)
+    charset <- getCharacterSet(req$HTTP_CONTENT_TYPE)
+    args <- parseBody(body, charset)
     req$postBody <- body
     req$args <- c(req$args, args)
     req$.internal$postBodyHandled <- TRUE
@@ -12,12 +13,17 @@ postBodyFilter <- function(req){
 
 #' @importFrom utils URLdecode
 #' @noRd
-parseBody <- function(body){
+parseBody <- function(body, charset = "UTF-8"){
   # The body in a curl call can also include querystring formatted data
   # Is there data in the request?
   if (is.null(body) || length(body) == 0 || body == "") {
     return(list())
   }
+
+  if (is.character(body)) {
+    Encoding(body) <- charset
+  }
+
   # Is it JSON data?
   if (stri_startswith_fixed(body, "{")) {
     # Handle JSON with jsonlite
diff --git a/R/response.R b/R/response.R
index 4b5259fec..00ae78ffc 100644
--- a/R/response.R
+++ b/R/response.R
@@ -27,6 +27,11 @@ PlumberResponse <- R6Class(
         body <- ""
       }
 
+      charset <- getCharacterSet(h$HTTP_CONTENT_TYPE)
+      if (is.character(body)) {
+        Encoding(body) <- charset
+      }
+
       list(
         status = self$status,
         headers = h,
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-content-type.R b/tests/testthat/test-content-type.R
index 8d59e7f46..6880756d1 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-content-type.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-content-type.R
@@ -20,3 +20,17 @@ test_that("contentType works in files", {
   val <- r$serve(make_req("GET", "/"), res)
   expect_equal(val$headers$`Content-Type`, "text/plain")
 })
+
+test_that("Parses charset properly", {
+  charset <- getCharacterSet("Content-Type: text/html; charset=latin1")
+  expect_equal(charset, "latin1")
+  charset <- getCharacterSet("Content-Type: text/html; charset=greek8")
+  expect_equal(charset, "greek8")
+})
+
+test_that("Defaults charset when not there", {
+  charset <- getCharacterSet("Content-Type: text/html")
+  expect_equal(charset, "UTF-8")
+  charset <- getCharacterSet(NULL)
+  expect_equal(charset, "UTF-8")
+})
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-postbody.R b/tests/testthat/test-postbody.R
index 51dc8c0cb..62a4743db 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-postbody.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-postbody.R
@@ -8,3 +8,30 @@ test_that("Query strings on post are handled correctly", {
   expect_equivalent(parseBody("a="), list()) # It's technically a named list()
   expect_equal(parseBody("a=1&b=&c&d=1"), list(a="1", d="1"))
 })
+
+test_that("Able to handle UTF-8", {
+  expect_equal(parseBody('{"text":"élise"}', "UTF-8")$text, "élise")
+})
+
+test_that("filter passes on charset", {
+  charset_passed <- ""
+  req <- list(
+    .internal = list(postBodyHandled = FALSE),
+    rook.input = list(
+      read_lines = function() {
+        called <- TRUE
+        return("this is a body")
+      }
+    ),
+    HTTP_CONTENT_TYPE = "text/html; charset=testset",
+    args = c()
+  )
+  with_mock(
+    parseBody = function(body, charset = "UTF-8") {
+      print(charset)
+      body
+    },
+    expect_output(postBodyFilter(req), "testset"),
+    .env = "plumber"
+  )
+})