diff --git a/builtin/fast-export.c b/builtin/fast-export.c
index 9e283482ef..7734a9f5a5 100644
--- a/builtin/fast-export.c
+++ b/builtin/fast-export.c
@@ -642,9 +642,12 @@ static void handle_commit(struct commit *commit, struct rev_info *rev,
 	printf("commit %s\nmark :%"PRIu32"\n", refname, last_idnum);
 	if (show_original_ids)
 		printf("original-oid %s\n", oid_to_hex(&commit->object.oid));
-	printf("%.*s\n%.*s\ndata %u\n%s",
+	printf("%.*s\n%.*s\n",
 	       (int)(author_end - author), author,
-	       (int)(committer_end - committer), committer,
+	       (int)(committer_end - committer), committer);
+	if (!reencoded && encoding)
+		printf("encoding %s\n", encoding);
+	printf("data %u\n%s",
 	       (unsigned)(reencoded
 			  ? strlen(reencoded) : message
 			  ? strlen(message) : 0),
diff --git a/t/t9350-fast-export.sh b/t/t9350-fast-export.sh
index 756d6a9905..e2ab8eddc0 100755
--- a/t/t9350-fast-export.sh
+++ b/t/t9350-fast-export.sh
@@ -118,6 +118,27 @@ test_expect_success 'iso-8859-7' '
 		 ! grep ^encoding actual)
 '
 
+test_expect_success 'encoding preserved if reencoding fails' '
+
+	test_when_finished "git reset --hard HEAD~1" &&
+	test_config i18n.commitencoding iso-8859-7 &&
+	echo rosten >file &&
+	git commit -s -F "$TEST_DIRECTORY/t9350/broken-iso-8859-7-commit-message.txt" file &&
+	git fast-export wer^..wer >iso-8859-7.fi &&
+	sed "s/wer/i18n-invalid/" iso-8859-7.fi |
+		(cd new &&
+		 git fast-import &&
+		 git cat-file commit i18n-invalid >actual &&
+		 # Make sure the commit still has the encoding header
+		 grep ^encoding actual &&
+		 # Verify that the commit has the expected size; i.e.
+		 # that no bytes were re-encoded to a different encoding.
+		 test 252 -eq "$(git cat-file -s i18n-invalid)" &&
+		 # ...and check for the original special bytes
+		 grep $(printf "\360") actual &&
+		 grep $(printf "\377") actual)
+'
+
 test_expect_success 'import/export-marks' '
 
 	git checkout -b marks master &&
diff --git a/t/t9350/broken-iso-8859-7-commit-message.txt b/t/t9350/broken-iso-8859-7-commit-message.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..d06ad75b44
--- /dev/null
+++ b/t/t9350/broken-iso-8859-7-commit-message.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Pi: ð; Invalid: ÿ
\ No newline at end of file