diff --git a/src/htsmsg_xml.c b/src/htsmsg_xml.c
index d1ba7d5f..81ff53ca 100644
--- a/src/htsmsg_xml.c
+++ b/src/htsmsg_xml.c
@@ -833,6 +833,10 @@ htsmsg_xml_deserialize(char *src, char *errbuf, size_t errbufsize)
   xp.xp_encoding = XML_ENCODING_UTF8;
   LIST_INIT(&xp.xp_namespaces);
 
+  /* check for UTF-8 BOM */
+  if(src[0] == 0xef && src[1] == 0xbb && src[2] == 0xbf)
+    memmove(src, src + 3, strlen(src) - 2);
+
   if((src = htsmsg_parse_prolog(&xp, src)) == NULL)
     goto err;