diff --git a/src/mcp/server/stdio.py b/src/mcp/server/stdio.py
index d74d6bc..0e0e491 100644
--- a/src/mcp/server/stdio.py
+++ b/src/mcp/server/stdio.py
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@ Example usage:
 
 import sys
 from contextlib import asynccontextmanager
+from io import TextIOWrapper
 
 import anyio
 import anyio.lowlevel
@@ -38,11 +39,13 @@ async def stdio_server(
     from the current process' stdin and writing to stdout.
     """
     # Purposely not using context managers for these, as we don't want to close
-    # standard process handles.
+    # standard process handles. Encoding of stdin/stdout as text streams on
+    # python is platform-dependent (Windows is particularly problematic), so we
+    # re-wrap the underlying binary stream to ensure UTF-8.
     if not stdin:
-        stdin = anyio.wrap_file(sys.stdin)
+        stdin = anyio.wrap_file(TextIOWrapper(sys.stdin.buffer, encoding="utf-8"))
     if not stdout:
-        stdout = anyio.wrap_file(sys.stdout)
+        stdout = anyio.wrap_file(TextIOWrapper(sys.stdout.buffer, encoding="utf-8"))
 
     read_stream: MemoryObjectReceiveStream[types.JSONRPCMessage | Exception]
     read_stream_writer: MemoryObjectSendStream[types.JSONRPCMessage | Exception]