diff --git a/pyhtcc/pyhtcc.py b/pyhtcc/pyhtcc.py
index ce29904..94ed8b6 100644
--- a/pyhtcc/pyhtcc.py
+++ b/pyhtcc/pyhtcc.py
@@ -524,7 +524,12 @@ def _do_authenticate(self) -> None:
         Can raise various exceptions. Users are expected to use authenticate() instead of this method.
         """
         self.session = requests.session()
-        self.session.auth = (self.username, self.password)
+
+        # See https://github.com/psf/requests/issues/4564 for why we encode user/pass to bytes
+        self.session.auth = (
+            self.username.encode("utf-8"),
+            self.password.encode("utf-8"),
+        )
 
         logger.debug(f"Attempting authentication for {self.username}")
 
diff --git a/tests/test_pyhtcc.py b/tests/test_pyhtcc.py
index 20387dd..cbf1a44 100644
--- a/tests/test_pyhtcc.py
+++ b/tests/test_pyhtcc.py
@@ -570,3 +570,6 @@ def test_logout_failure_error(self):
             self.pyhtcc.logout()
 
         assert str(err.value) == "Unable to logout user: user, status=500"
+
+    def test_auth_gets_set_to_utf8_bytes(self):
+        assert self.mock_session.auth == (b"user", b"pass")