diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index be973aa4..ba868997 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -2,6 +2,12 @@
 
 <!--next-version-placeholder-->
 
+## v3.11.5 (2023-10-20)
+
+### Fix
+
+* Custom input encoding ([#601](https://github.com/CycloneDX/cyclonedx-python/issues/601)) ([`363934c`](https://github.com/CycloneDX/cyclonedx-python/commit/363934c0bc69ebbb23472f1173bf3c6b1e3c023a))
+
 ## v3.11.4 (2023-10-19)
 
 ### Fix
diff --git a/cyclonedx_py/client.py b/cyclonedx_py/client.py
index 733b08e0..3a348a8e 100644
--- a/cyclonedx_py/client.py
+++ b/cyclonedx_py/client.py
@@ -199,7 +199,8 @@ def get_arg_parser(*, prog: Optional[str] = None) -> argparse.ArgumentParser:
         )
         input_method_group.add_argument(
             '-i', '--in-file', action='store', metavar='FILE_PATH',
-            type=argparse.FileType('r'),  # FileType does handle '-'
+            # custom input shall be treated as binary, the actual encoding is detected later
+            type=argparse.FileType('rb'),  # FileType does handle '-'
             default=None,
             help='File to read input from. Use "-" to read from STDIN.', dest='input_source', required=False
         )