diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 4e2be73..fdbb73d 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ setup(
     name="betterproto",
     version="1.2.3",
     description="A better Protobuf / gRPC generator & library",
-    long_description=open("README.md", "r").read(),
+    long_description=open("README.md", "r", encoding="utf-8").read(),
     long_description_content_type="text/markdown",
     url="http://github.com/danielgtaylor/python-betterproto",
     author="Daniel G. Taylor",