diff --git a/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/_markitdown.py b/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/_markitdown.py
index fa67aad26..888d1e626 100644
--- a/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/_markitdown.py
+++ b/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/_markitdown.py
@@ -70,6 +70,34 @@ def _get_content_disposition_filename(content_disposition: str) -> Optional[str]
     return extended_filename or fallback_filename
 
 
+def _read_charset_sample(file_stream: BinaryIO) -> bytes:
+    """Read a 64 KiB sample, completing a trailing split UTF-8 character."""
+    sample = file_stream.read(65536)
+    if len(sample) < 65536:
+        return sample
+
+    decoder = codecs.getincrementaldecoder("utf-8")(errors="strict")
+    try:
+        decoder.decode(sample, final=False)
+        if not decoder.getstate()[0]:
+            return sample
+
+        suffix = b""
+        for _ in range(3):
+            chunk = file_stream.read(1)
+            if not chunk:
+                break
+            suffix += chunk
+            decoder.decode(chunk, final=False)
+            if not decoder.getstate()[0]:
+                return sample + suffix
+    except UnicodeDecodeError:
+        # Leave invalid UTF-8 unchanged for the existing charset detector.
+        pass
+
+    return sample
+
+
 # Lower priority values are tried first.
 PRIORITY_SPECIFIC_FILE_FORMAT = (
     0.0  # e.g., .docx, .pdf, .xlsx, Or specific pages, e.g., wikipedia
@@ -743,9 +771,9 @@ def _get_stream_info_guesses(
                 # If it's text, also guess the charset
                 charset = None
                 if result.prediction.output.is_text:
-                    # Read the first 64k to guess the charset
+                    # Complete a split UTF-8 character at the sample boundary.
                     file_stream.seek(cur_pos)
-                    stream_page = file_stream.read(65536)
+                    stream_page = _read_charset_sample(file_stream)
                     charset_result = charset_normalizer.from_bytes(stream_page).best()
 
                     if charset_result is not None:
diff --git a/packages/markitdown/tests/test_charset_sample.py b/packages/markitdown/tests/test_charset_sample.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..9b3036bd5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/packages/markitdown/tests/test_charset_sample.py
@@ -0,0 +1,120 @@
+"""Charset sampling must not mistake a split UTF-8 character for another encoding."""
+
+import io
+
+import pytest
+
+from markitdown import MarkItDown, StreamInfo
+from markitdown._markitdown import _read_charset_sample
+
+
+_SAMPLE_SIZE = 65536
+_SPLIT_CHARACTERS = [
+    (character, split)
+    for character in ("\u00e9", "\u65e5", "\U0001f600")
+    for split in range(1, len(character.encode("utf-8")))
+]
+
+
+def _split_utf8_json(character: str, split: int) -> bytes:
+    prefix = '{"name":"r\u00e9sum\u00e9","notes":"'.encode("utf-8")
+    return (
+        prefix
+        + b"a" * (_SAMPLE_SIZE - split - len(prefix))
+        + (character + '"}').encode("utf-8")
+    )
+
+
+@pytest.fixture(scope="module")
+def markitdown() -> MarkItDown:
+    return MarkItDown()
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("character,split", _SPLIT_CHARACTERS)
+def test_charset_sample_completes_only_the_split_character(
+    character: str, split: int
+) -> None:
+    data = _split_utf8_json(character, split)
+    stream = io.BytesIO(data)
+    expected_size = _SAMPLE_SIZE + len(character.encode("utf-8")) - split
+
+    sample = _read_charset_sample(stream)
+
+    assert sample == data[:expected_size]
+    assert stream.tell() == expected_size
+    assert expected_size <= _SAMPLE_SIZE + 3
+    sample.decode("utf-8")
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("character,split", _SPLIT_CHARACTERS)
+def test_split_utf8_json_preserves_content(
+    markitdown: MarkItDown, character: str, split: int
+) -> None:
+    data = _split_utf8_json(character, split)
+    stream = io.BytesIO(data)
+
+    guesses = markitdown._get_stream_info_guesses(stream, StreamInfo())
+    assert guesses[0].charset == "utf-8"
+    assert stream.tell() == 0
+
+    result = markitdown.convert_stream(stream)
+
+    assert result.markdown == data.decode("utf-8")
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize(
+    "sample,tail",
+    [
+        (b"", b""),
+        (b"ordinary text", b""),
+        (b"short incomplete \xc3", b""),
+        (b"a" * _SAMPLE_SIZE, b"\xc3\xa9"),
+        (b"a" * (_SAMPLE_SIZE - 2) + b"\xc3\xa9", b"\xf0\x9f\x98\x80"),
+        (b"a" * (_SAMPLE_SIZE - 1) + b"\xc3", b""),
+        (b"a" * (_SAMPLE_SIZE - 1) + b"\xf0", b"\x9f"),
+        (b"a" * (_SAMPLE_SIZE - 1) + b"\xc3", b"x"),
+        (b"a" * (_SAMPLE_SIZE - 1) + b"\xe0", b"\x80\x80"),
+        (b"a" * (_SAMPLE_SIZE - 1) + b"\xed", b"\xa0\x80"),
+        (b"\xff" + b"a" * (_SAMPLE_SIZE - 2) + b"\xc3", b"\xa9"),
+    ],
+    ids=[
+        "empty",
+        "short",
+        "short-incomplete",
+        "ascii",
+        "complete-utf8",
+        "incomplete-at-eof",
+        "incomplete-after-lookahead",
+        "invalid-continuation",
+        "overlong",
+        "surrogate",
+        "non-utf8-prefix",
+    ],
+)
+def test_other_charset_samples_are_unchanged(sample: bytes, tail: bytes) -> None:
+    stream = io.BytesIO(sample + tail)
+
+    assert _read_charset_sample(stream) == sample
+    assert stream.tell() <= _SAMPLE_SIZE + 3
+
+
+def test_charset_guesses_restore_nonzero_stream_position(
+    markitdown: MarkItDown,
+) -> None:
+    stream = io.BytesIO(b"prefix" + _split_utf8_json("\U0001f600", 1))
+    stream.seek(len(b"prefix"))
+
+    markitdown._get_stream_info_guesses(stream, StreamInfo())
+
+    assert stream.tell() == len(b"prefix")
+
+
+def test_explicit_charset_still_takes_precedence(markitdown: MarkItDown) -> None:
+    data = _split_utf8_json("\u00e9", 1)
+
+    result = markitdown.convert_stream(
+        io.BytesIO(data),
+        stream_info=StreamInfo(extension=".json", charset="cp1252"),
+    )
+
+    assert result.markdown == data.decode("cp1252")