diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 798796a56..734cccd0d 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -15,6 +15,9 @@ CHANGES
 * `recode_into()` gains an `overwrite` argument to skip overwriting already
   recoded cases when multiple recode patterns apply to the same case.
 
+* `data_read()` now passes the `encoding` argument to `data.table::fread()`.
+  This allows to read files with non-ASCII characters.
+
 * `datawizard` moves from the GPL-3 license to the MIT license.
 
 BUG FIXES
diff --git a/R/data_read.R b/R/data_read.R
index a4294e67b..2c3061570 100644
--- a/R/data_read.R
+++ b/R/data_read.R
@@ -271,7 +271,11 @@ data_read <- function(path,
 
 .read_text <- function(path, encoding, verbose, ...) {
   if (insight::check_if_installed("data.table", quietly = TRUE)) {
-    out <- data.table::fread(input = path, ...)
+    # set proper default encoding-value for fread
+    if (is.null(encoding)) {
+      encoding <- "unknown"
+    }
+    out <- data.table::fread(input = path, encoding = encoding, ...)
     class(out) <- "data.frame"
     return(out)
   }