diff --git a/components/camel-telemetry/src/main/java/org/apache/camel/telemetry/propagation/CamelHeadersSpanContextPropagationExtractor.java b/components/camel-telemetry/src/main/java/org/apache/camel/telemetry/propagation/CamelHeadersSpanContextPropagationExtractor.java
index b49bd40e31b28..a2df59633f502 100644
--- a/components/camel-telemetry/src/main/java/org/apache/camel/telemetry/propagation/CamelHeadersSpanContextPropagationExtractor.java
+++ b/components/camel-telemetry/src/main/java/org/apache/camel/telemetry/propagation/CamelHeadersSpanContextPropagationExtractor.java
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@
  */
 package org.apache.camel.telemetry.propagation;
 
+import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
 import java.util.Iterator;
 import java.util.Map;
 import java.util.Set;
@@ -27,9 +28,16 @@ public final class CamelHeadersSpanContextPropagationExtractor implements SpanCo
     private final Map<String, Object> map = new CaseInsensitiveMap();
 
     public CamelHeadersSpanContextPropagationExtractor(final Map<String, Object> map) {
-        // Extract string valued map entries
-        map.entrySet().stream().filter(e -> e.getValue() instanceof String)
-                .forEach(e -> this.map.put(e.getKey(), e.getValue()));
+        // Extract string and byte[] valued map entries.
+        // Messaging transports (Kafka, AMQP, etc.) may deliver headers as byte arrays,
+        // so we convert them to String for the W3C propagator to extract trace context.
+        map.entrySet().stream().filter(e -> e.getValue() instanceof String || e.getValue() instanceof byte[]).forEach(e -> {
+            if (e.getValue() instanceof byte[] bytes) {
+                this.map.put(e.getKey(), new String(bytes, StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
+            } else {
+                this.map.put(e.getKey(), e.getValue());
+            }
+        });
     }
 
     @Override
diff --git a/components/camel-telemetry/src/test/java/org/apache/camel/telemetry/propagation/CamelHeadersExtractAdapterTest.java b/components/camel-telemetry/src/test/java/org/apache/camel/telemetry/propagation/CamelHeadersExtractAdapterTest.java
index b3c609ef9375f..dc4d5b3b33861 100644
--- a/components/camel-telemetry/src/test/java/org/apache/camel/telemetry/propagation/CamelHeadersExtractAdapterTest.java
+++ b/components/camel-telemetry/src/test/java/org/apache/camel/telemetry/propagation/CamelHeadersExtractAdapterTest.java
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@
  */
 package org.apache.camel.telemetry.propagation;
 
+import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
 import java.util.HashMap;
 import java.util.Iterator;
 import java.util.Map;
@@ -26,6 +27,8 @@
 
 import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertEquals;
 import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertFalse;
+import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertNull;
+import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertTrue;
 
 public class CamelHeadersExtractAdapterTest {
 
@@ -69,4 +72,38 @@ public void keyWithDifferentCase() {
         SpanContextPropagationExtractor adapter = new CamelHeadersSpanContextPropagationExtractor(map);
         assertEquals("value", adapter.get("KeY"));
     }
+
+    @Test
+    public void byteArrayProperty() {
+        map.put("traceparent", "00-abc123-def456-01".getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
+        SpanContextPropagationExtractor adapter = new CamelHeadersSpanContextPropagationExtractor(map);
+        assertEquals("00-abc123-def456-01", adapter.get("traceparent"));
+    }
+
+    @Test
+    public void mixedStringAndByteArrayProperties() {
+        map.put("traceparent", "00-abc123-def456-01".getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
+        map.put("custom-header", "custom-value");
+        SpanContextPropagationExtractor adapter = new CamelHeadersSpanContextPropagationExtractor(map);
+        assertEquals("00-abc123-def456-01", adapter.get("traceparent"));
+        assertEquals("custom-value", adapter.get("custom-header"));
+    }
+
+    @Test
+    public void nonStringNonByteArrayPropertyIsFiltered() {
+        map.put("integer-header", 42);
+        map.put("key", "value");
+        SpanContextPropagationExtractor adapter = new CamelHeadersSpanContextPropagationExtractor(map);
+        assertNull(adapter.get("integer-header"));
+        assertEquals("value", adapter.get("key"));
+        assertTrue(adapter.keys().contains("key"));
+        assertFalse(adapter.keys().contains("integer-header"));
+    }
+
+    @Test
+    public void byteArrayKeyWithDifferentCase() {
+        map.put("traceparent", "00-abc123-def456-01".getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
+        SpanContextPropagationExtractor adapter = new CamelHeadersSpanContextPropagationExtractor(map);
+        assertEquals("00-abc123-def456-01", adapter.get("TraceParent"));
+    }
 }