diff --git a/cmake/modules/basic_settings.cmake b/cmake/modules/basic_settings.cmake
index 54bbffe7939..ed947a4fb09 100644
--- a/cmake/modules/basic_settings.cmake
+++ b/cmake/modules/basic_settings.cmake
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ include_guard(GLOBAL)
 
 if(SYSBUILD)
   add_custom_target(sysbuild_cache)
-  file(STRINGS "${SYSBUILD_CACHE}" sysbuild_cache_strings)
+  file(STRINGS "${SYSBUILD_CACHE}" sysbuild_cache_strings ENCODING UTF-8)
   foreach(str ${sysbuild_cache_strings})
     # Using a regex for matching whole 'VAR_NAME:TYPE=VALUE' will strip semi-colons
     # thus resulting in lists to become strings.
diff --git a/share/sysbuild/cmake/modules/sysbuild_extensions.cmake b/share/sysbuild/cmake/modules/sysbuild_extensions.cmake
index f2a08687f43..c20fcdb1e51 100644
--- a/share/sysbuild/cmake/modules/sysbuild_extensions.cmake
+++ b/share/sysbuild/cmake/modules/sysbuild_extensions.cmake
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ function(load_cache)
   if(NOT TARGET ${LOAD_CACHE_IMAGE}_cache)
     add_custom_target(${LOAD_CACHE_IMAGE}_cache)
   endif()
-  file(STRINGS "${LOAD_CACHE_BINARY_DIR}/CMakeCache.txt" cache_strings)
+  file(STRINGS "${LOAD_CACHE_BINARY_DIR}/CMakeCache.txt" cache_strings ENCODING UTF-8)
   foreach(str ${cache_strings})
     # Using a regex for matching whole 'VAR_NAME:TYPE=VALUE' will strip semi-colons
     # thus resulting in lists to become strings.