diff --git a/src/aleph/toolkit/json.py b/src/aleph/toolkit/json.py
index cde593c7..1e5b57f0 100644
--- a/src/aleph/toolkit/json.py
+++ b/src/aleph/toolkit/json.py
@@ -36,8 +36,8 @@ def dump(fp: IO, obj: Any) -> None:
     raise NotImplementedError("orjson does not provide dump")
 
 
-def dumps(obj: Any) -> SerializedJson:
+def dumps(obj: Any) -> bytes:
     try:
         return orjson.dumps(obj)
     except TypeError as e:
-        return bytes(json.dumps(obj))
+        return json.dumps(obj).encode()