diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 3928ecef6..be831873c 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
 # testthat (development version)
 
+* `test_that()` no longer inappropriately skips when calling `expect_equal()`
+  when you've temporarily set the locale to non-UTF-8 (#1285).
+
 * When a snapshot changes the hint also mentions that you can use 
   `snapshot_review()` (#1500, @DanChaltiel).
 
diff --git a/R/reporter.R b/R/reporter.R
index 66cbd7135..d59441442 100644
--- a/R/reporter.R
+++ b/R/reporter.R
@@ -66,9 +66,11 @@ Reporter <- R6::R6Class("Reporter",
       local_reproducible_output(
         width = self$width,
         crayon = self$crayon,
-        unicode = self$unicode,
         .env = .env
       )
+      # Can't set unicode with local_reproducible_output() because it can
+      # generate a skip if you're temporarily using a non-UTF-8 locale
+      withr::local_options(cli.unicode = self$unicode, .local_envir = .env)
     },
 
     cat_tight = function(...) {
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-reporter.R b/tests/testthat/test-reporter.R
index c6c4c724f..0e75fb57d 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-reporter.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-reporter.R
@@ -16,3 +16,8 @@ test_that("can control output with file arg/option", {
   )
   expect_snapshot_output(readLines(path))
 })
+
+test_that("should not automatically skip in non-utf-8 locales", {
+  withr::local_locale(LC_CTYPE = "C")
+  expect_true(TRUE)
+})