diff --git a/src/pugixml.cpp b/src/pugixml.cpp
index e87fa857..6e6e89eb 100644
--- a/src/pugixml.cpp
+++ b/src/pugixml.cpp
@@ -7466,7 +7466,15 @@ namespace pugi
 		if (!(flags & format_no_declaration) && !impl::has_declaration(_root))
 		{
 			buffered_writer.write_string(PUGIXML_TEXT("<?xml version=\"1.0\""));
-			if (encoding == encoding_latin1) buffered_writer.write_string(PUGIXML_TEXT(" encoding=\"ISO-8859-1\""));
+			switch( buffered_writer.encoding ) { // 2024-06-20 bugfix: use encoding as interpreted by get_write_encoding in xml_buffered_writer constructor
+				case encoding_latin1:
+					buffered_writer.write_string(PUGIXML_TEXT(" encoding=\"ISO-8859-1\""));
+				break;
+				case encoding_utf8:
+					buffered_writer.write_string(PUGIXML_TEXT(" encoding=\"UTF-8\"")); // 2024-06-03: explicit UTF-8 encoding
+				break;
+				default: break; // noop - other encodings are (currently) not supported / not explicitly stored in xml header
+			}
 			buffered_writer.write('?', '>');
 			if (!(flags & format_raw)) buffered_writer.write('\n');
 		}