diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 6d4b01c6f..d6f0c038c 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ def _get_version() -> str:
     description="A diverse suite of scalable reinforcement learning environments in JAX",
     license="Apache 2.0",
     url="https://github.com/instadeepai/jumanji/",
-    long_description=open("README.md").read(),
+    long_description=open("README.md", encoding="utf-8").read(),
     long_description_content_type="text/markdown",
     keywords="reinforcement-learning python jax",
     packages=setuptools.find_packages(),