diff --git a/runtime/lua/tohtml.lua b/runtime/lua/tohtml.lua
index 52e0742ef3..d15412edee 100644
--- a/runtime/lua/tohtml.lua
+++ b/runtime/lua/tohtml.lua
@@ -906,7 +906,9 @@ local function styletable_listchars(state)
 
   if listchars.nbsp then
     for _, match in
-      ipairs(vim.fn.matchbufline(state.bufnr, '\xe2\x80\xaf\\|\xa0', 1, '$') --[[@as (table[])]])
+      ipairs(
+        vim.fn.matchbufline(state.bufnr, '\226\128\175\\|\194\160', 1, '$') --[[@as (table[])]]
+      )
     do
       style_line_insert_overlay_char(
         state.style[match.lnum],
diff --git a/test/functional/plugin/tohtml_spec.lua b/test/functional/plugin/tohtml_spec.lua
index 66dcfde3aa..0d0f10671f 100644
--- a/test/functional/plugin/tohtml_spec.lua
+++ b/test/functional/plugin/tohtml_spec.lua
@@ -315,7 +315,7 @@ describe(':TOhtml', function()
     fn.setline(1, '\tfoo\t')
     fn.setline(2, ' foo foo ')
     fn.setline(3, '  foo  foo  ')
-    fn.setline(4, 'foo\x2cfoo')
+    fn.setline(4, 'foo\194\160 \226\128\175foo')
     run_tohtml_and_assert(screen)
     exec('new|only')
     fn.setline(1, '\tfoo\t')