diff --git a/AUTHORS b/AUTHORS
index 8b07e8bf2a8..609eb3c7770 100644
--- a/AUTHORS
+++ b/AUTHORS
@@ -86,6 +86,7 @@ Lukas Bednar
 Luke Murphy
 Maciek Fijalkowski
 Maho
+Manuel Krebber
 Marc Schlaich
 Marcin Bachry
 Mark Abramowitz
diff --git a/CHANGELOG.rst b/CHANGELOG.rst
index dd5c6812387..baecaf80ec2 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.rst
+++ b/CHANGELOG.rst
@@ -5,7 +5,8 @@
 New Features
 ------------
 
-*
+* Added an ini option ``doctest_encoding`` to specify which encoding to use for doctest files.
+  Thanks `@wheerd`_ for the PR (`#2101`_).
 
 *
 
@@ -21,10 +22,10 @@ Changes
   assertion messages if verbosity < 2 (`#1512`_).
   Thanks `@mattduck`_ for the PR
 
-* ``--pdbcls`` no longer implies ``--pdb``. This makes it possible to use 
+* ``--pdbcls`` no longer implies ``--pdb``. This makes it possible to use
   ``addopts=--pdbcls=module.SomeClass`` on ``pytest.ini``. Thanks `@davidszotten`_ for
   the PR (`#1952`_).
-* Change exception raised by ``capture.DontReadFromInput.fileno()`` from ``ValueError`` 
+* Change exception raised by ``capture.DontReadFromInput.fileno()`` from ``ValueError``
   to ``io.UnsupportedOperation``. Thanks `@vlad-dragos`_ for the PR.
 
 
@@ -34,11 +35,13 @@ Changes
 .. _@davidszotten: https://github.com/davidszotten
 .. _@fushi: https://github.com/fushi
 .. _@mattduck: https://github.com/mattduck
+.. _@wheerd: https://github.com/wheerd
 
 .. _#1512: https://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest/issues/1512
 .. _#1874: https://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest/pull/1874
 .. _#1952: https://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest/pull/1952
 .. _#2013: https://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest/issues/2013
+.. _#2101: https://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest/pull/2101
 
 
 3.0.5.dev0
diff --git a/_pytest/doctest.py b/_pytest/doctest.py
index f4782dded5c..4ee21b12dbf 100644
--- a/_pytest/doctest.py
+++ b/_pytest/doctest.py
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@
 def pytest_addoption(parser):
     parser.addini('doctest_optionflags', 'option flags for doctests',
         type="args", default=["ELLIPSIS"])
+    parser.addini("doctest_encoding", 'encoding used for doctest files', default="utf-8")
     group = parser.getgroup("collect")
     group.addoption("--doctest-modules",
         action="store_true", default=False,
@@ -162,7 +163,6 @@ def get_optionflags(parent):
         flag_acc |= flag_lookup_table[flag]
     return flag_acc
 
-
 class DoctestTextfile(pytest.Module):
     obj = None
 
@@ -171,7 +171,8 @@ def collect(self):
 
         # inspired by doctest.testfile; ideally we would use it directly,
         # but it doesn't support passing a custom checker
-        text = self.fspath.read()
+        encoding = self.config.getini("doctest_encoding")
+        text = self.fspath.read_text(encoding)
         filename = str(self.fspath)
         name = self.fspath.basename
         globs = {'__name__': '__main__'}
diff --git a/_pytest/pytester.py b/_pytest/pytester.py
index d19ff1ec632..37348c26e2c 100644
--- a/_pytest/pytester.py
+++ b/_pytest/pytester.py
@@ -471,7 +471,7 @@ def chdir(self):
         if not hasattr(self, '_olddir'):
             self._olddir = old
 
-    def _makefile(self, ext, args, kwargs):
+    def _makefile(self, ext, args, kwargs, encoding="utf-8"):
         items = list(kwargs.items())
         if args:
             source = py.builtin._totext("\n").join(
@@ -490,7 +490,7 @@ def my_totext(s, encoding="utf-8"):
 
             source_unicode = "\n".join([my_totext(line) for line in source.lines])
             source = py.builtin._totext(source_unicode)
-            content = source.strip().encode("utf-8") # + "\n"
+            content = source.strip().encode(encoding) # + "\n"
             #content = content.rstrip() + "\n"
             p.write(content, "wb")
             if ret is None:
diff --git a/doc/en/doctest.rst b/doc/en/doctest.rst
index 5a11225151d..a82e3ed9b95 100644
--- a/doc/en/doctest.rst
+++ b/doc/en/doctest.rst
@@ -11,6 +11,19 @@ can change the pattern by issuing::
 on the command line. Since version ``2.9``, ``--doctest-glob``
 can be given multiple times in the command-line.
 
+.. versionadded:: 3.1
+
+    You can specify the encoding that will be used for those doctest files
+    using the ``doctest_encoding`` ini option:
+
+    .. code-block:: ini
+
+        # content of pytest.ini
+        [pytest]
+        doctest_encoding = latin1
+
+    The default encoding is UTF-8.
+
 You can also trigger running of doctests
 from docstrings in all python modules (including regular
 python test modules)::
@@ -52,9 +65,9 @@ then you can just invoke ``pytest`` without command line options::
     platform linux -- Python 3.5.2, pytest-3.0.4, py-1.4.31, pluggy-0.4.0
     rootdir: $REGENDOC_TMPDIR, inifile: pytest.ini
     collected 1 items
-    
+
     mymodule.py .
-    
+
     ======= 1 passed in 0.12 seconds ========
 
 It is possible to use fixtures using the ``getfixture`` helper::
diff --git a/testing/test_doctest.py b/testing/test_doctest.py
index 4ea2cc58eb6..72ba0a622f2 100644
--- a/testing/test_doctest.py
+++ b/testing/test_doctest.py
@@ -129,6 +129,33 @@ def test_multiple_patterns(self, testdir):
             '*1 passed*',
         ])
 
+    @pytest.mark.parametrize(
+        '   test_string,    encoding',
+        [
+            (u'foo',         'ascii'),
+            (u'öäü',         'latin1'),
+            (u'öäü',         'utf-8')
+        ]
+    )
+    def test_encoding(self, testdir, test_string, encoding):
+        """Test support for doctest_encoding ini option.
+        """
+        testdir.makeini("""
+            [pytest]
+            doctest_encoding={0}
+        """.format(encoding))
+        doctest = u"""
+            >>> u"{0}"
+            {1}
+        """.format(test_string, repr(test_string))
+        testdir._makefile(".txt", [doctest], {}, encoding=encoding)
+
+        result = testdir.runpytest()
+
+        result.stdout.fnmatch_lines([
+            '*1 passed*',
+        ])
+
     def test_doctest_unexpected_exception(self, testdir):
         testdir.maketxtfile("""
             >>> i = 0