diff --git a/org.eclipse.jgit.test/pom.xml b/org.eclipse.jgit.test/pom.xml
index b8d5bc7ea..892755957 100644
--- a/org.eclipse.jgit.test/pom.xml
+++ b/org.eclipse.jgit.test/pom.xml
@@ -126,6 +126,7 @@
         <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
         <version>2.4.2</version>
         <configuration>
+          <argLine>-Dfile.encoding=UTF-8</argLine>
           <includes>
             <include>**/*Test.java</include>
             <include>**/*TestCase.java</include>