diff --git a/poezio_plugins/omemo/__init__.py b/poezio_plugins/omemo/__init__.py
index 0e0fe3c..05e4a4c 100644
--- a/poezio_plugins/omemo/__init__.py
+++ b/poezio_plugins/omemo/__init__.py
@@ -62,7 +62,7 @@ class Plugin(E2EEPlugin):
 
         self.info = lambda i: self.api.information(i, 'Info')
 
-        jid_str = self.core.xmpp.boundjid.bare.encode('US-ASCII')
+        jid_str = self.core.xmpp.boundjid.bare.encode('utf-8')
         digest = hashlib.sha256(jid_str).digest()
         hashed_jid = base64.b32encode(digest).decode('US-ASCII')
         data_dir = os.path.join(DATA_HOME, 'omemo', hashed_jid)