diff --git a/docs/docs/extractors/flashtext.md b/docs/docs/extractors/flashtext.md
index 24f600e..6d7d461 100644
--- a/docs/docs/extractors/flashtext.md
+++ b/docs/docs/extractors/flashtext.md
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ use the parameter `non_word_boundaries`
 - **entity_name**: the name of the entity to attach to the message
 - **case_sensitive**: whether to consider case when matching entities. `False` by default.
 - **non_word_boundaries**: characters which shouldn't be considered word boundaries.
+- **encoding**: the name of the encoding used to read the lookup text file. 
 
 ## Base Usage
 
diff --git a/rasa_nlu_examples/extractors/flashtext_entity_extractor.py b/rasa_nlu_examples/extractors/flashtext_entity_extractor.py
index 59f328d..ced2e53 100644
--- a/rasa_nlu_examples/extractors/flashtext_entity_extractor.py
+++ b/rasa_nlu_examples/extractors/flashtext_entity_extractor.py
@@ -45,6 +45,7 @@ def get_default_config() -> Dict[Text, Any]:
             "non_word_boundaries": "",
             "path": None,
             "entity_name": None,
+            "encoding": None,
         }
 
     def __init__(
@@ -63,7 +64,9 @@ def __init__(
         )
         for non_word_boundary in config["non_word_boundaries"]:
             self.keyword_processor.add_non_word_boundary(non_word_boundary)
-        words = pathlib.Path(self.path).read_text().split("\n")
+        words = (
+            pathlib.Path(self.path).read_text(encoding=config["encoding"]).split("\n")
+        )
         if len(words) == 0:
             rasa.shared.utils.io.raise_warning(
                 f"No words found in the {pathlib.Path(self.path)} file."