diff --git a/R/content-types.R b/R/content-types.R
index 9da895b67..9bb55800b 100644
--- a/R/content-types.R
+++ b/R/content-types.R
@@ -50,3 +50,13 @@ 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..08187d279 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..d7508d103 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..3d93e4eb9 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$`Content-Type`, "text/plain")
 })
+
+test_that('Parses charset properly', {
+  charset = getCharacterSet("Content-Type: text/html; charset=latin1")
+  expect_equal(charset, "latin1")
+  charset = getCharacterSet("Content-Type: text/html; charset=greek8")
+  expect_equal(charset, "greek8")
+})
+
+test_that('Defaults charset when not there', {
+  charset = getCharacterSet("Content-Type: text/html")
+  expect_equal(charset, "UTF-8")
+  charset = getCharacterSet(NULL)
+  expect_equal(charset, "UTF-8")
+})
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-postbody.R b/tests/testthat/test-postbody.R
index 51dc8c0cb..15e6a71dc 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-postbody.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-postbody.R
@@ -8,3 +8,26 @@ test_that("Query strings on post are handled correctly", {
   expect_equivalent(parseBody("a="), list()) # It's technically a named list()
   expect_equal(parseBody("a=1&b=&c&d=1"), list(a="1", d="1"))
 })
+
+test_that("Able to handle UTF-8", {
+  expect_equal(parseBody('{"text":"élise"}', 'UTF-8')$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"
+  )
+})