diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/font_manager.py b/lib/matplotlib/font_manager.py
index 28ac73453e26..d1468c538741 100644
--- a/lib/matplotlib/font_manager.py
+++ b/lib/matplotlib/font_manager.py
@@ -1287,7 +1287,7 @@ def fc_match(pattern, fontext):
         except OSError:
             return None
         if pipe.returncode == 0:
-            for match in _fc_match_regex.finditer(output):
+            for match in _fc_match_regex.finditer(output.decode("utf-8")):
                 file = match.group(1)
                 if os.path.splitext(file)[1][1:] in fontexts:
                     return file