diff --git a/server/src/main/java/org/eclipse/openvsx/RegistryApplication.java b/server/src/main/java/org/eclipse/openvsx/RegistryApplication.java
index 523660e9d..59ba5ac4f 100644
--- a/server/src/main/java/org/eclipse/openvsx/RegistryApplication.java
+++ b/server/src/main/java/org/eclipse/openvsx/RegistryApplication.java
@@ -30,6 +30,7 @@
 import org.springframework.scheduling.concurrent.ThreadPoolTaskScheduler;
 import org.springframework.security.web.firewall.HttpStatusRequestRejectedHandler;
 import org.springframework.security.web.firewall.RequestRejectedHandler;
+import org.springframework.web.filter.CharacterEncodingFilter;
 
 @SpringBootApplication
 @EnableScheduling
@@ -62,6 +63,23 @@ public FilterRegistrationBean<ShallowEtagHeaderFilter> shallowEtagHeaderFilter()
         return registrationBean;
     }
 
+    @Bean
+    public FilterRegistrationBean<CharacterEncodingFilter> forceUTF8EncodingFilter() {
+        var registrationBean = new FilterRegistrationBean<CharacterEncodingFilter>();
+
+        // Enforce the use of utf-8 as character encoding for requests / responses as spring boot defaults to ISO-8859-1.
+        // This avoids the need to explicitly specify the charset in the returned Content-Type header for each mapping.
+        CharacterEncodingFilter filter = new CharacterEncodingFilter();
+        filter.setEncoding("UTF-8");
+        filter.setForceEncoding(true);
+
+        registrationBean.setFilter(filter);
+        registrationBean.addUrlPatterns("/api/*");
+        registrationBean.setOrder(Ordered.LOWEST_PRECEDENCE);
+
+        return registrationBean;
+    }
+
     @Bean
     public RequestRejectedHandler requestRejectedHandler() {
         return new HttpStatusRequestRejectedHandler();