diff --git a/HISTORY.rst b/HISTORY.rst
index ac1128a..1083009 100644
--- a/HISTORY.rst
+++ b/HISTORY.rst
@@ -3,6 +3,11 @@
 Release History
 ===============
 
+0.8.2
++++++
+
+* Always use UTF-8 for log file encoding (#247)
+
 0.8.1
 +++++
 
diff --git a/knack/log.py b/knack/log.py
index adf75ae..5c0aec9 100644
--- a/knack/log.py
+++ b/knack/log.py
@@ -16,6 +16,8 @@
 # without --debug flag.
 cli_logger_names = [CLI_LOGGER_NAME]
 
+LOG_FILE_ENCODING = 'utf-8'
+
 
 class CliLogLevel(IntEnum):
     CRITICAL = 0
@@ -163,7 +165,8 @@ def _init_logfile_handlers(self, root_logger, cli_loggers):
         ensure_dir(self.log_dir)
         log_file_path = os.path.join(self.log_dir, self.logfile_name)
         from logging.handlers import RotatingFileHandler
-        logfile_handler = RotatingFileHandler(log_file_path, maxBytes=10 * 1024 * 1024, backupCount=5)
+        logfile_handler = RotatingFileHandler(log_file_path, maxBytes=10 * 1024 * 1024, backupCount=5,
+                                              encoding=LOG_FILE_ENCODING)
         lfmt = logging.Formatter('%(process)d : %(asctime)s : %(levelname)s : %(name)s : %(message)s')
         logfile_handler.setFormatter(lfmt)
         logfile_handler.setLevel(logging.DEBUG)
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index fab43f1..606956b 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 from codecs import open
 from setuptools import setup, find_packages
 
-VERSION = '0.8.1'
+VERSION = '0.8.2'
 
 DEPENDENCIES = [
     'argcomplete',