diff --git a/Lib/packaging/tests/test_util.py b/Lib/packaging/tests/test_util.py
index 5e804c27a61..c3d91aa0598 100644
--- a/Lib/packaging/tests/test_util.py
+++ b/Lib/packaging/tests/test_util.py
@@ -946,7 +946,7 @@ class PackagingLibChecks(support.TempdirManager,
 
     def _distutils_pkg_info(self):
         tmp = self._distutils_setup_py_pkg()
-        self.write_file([tmp, 'PKG-INFO'], '')
+        self.write_file([tmp, 'PKG-INFO'], '', encoding='UTF-8')
         return tmp
 
     def _setup_cfg_with_no_metadata_pkg(self):
@@ -971,7 +971,7 @@ class PackagingLibChecks(support.TempdirManager,
 
     def _pkg_info_with_no_distutils(self):
         tmp = self._random_setup_py_pkg()
-        self.write_file([tmp, 'PKG-INFO'], '')
+        self.write_file([tmp, 'PKG-INFO'], '', encoding='UTF-8')
         return tmp
 
     def _random_setup_py_pkg(self):
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index bf35d9c389f..fbcdb8d1989 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -271,7 +271,7 @@ Core and Builtins
 Library
 -------
 
-- Issue #9561: distutils now reads and writes egg-info files using UTF-8,
+- Issue #9561: distutils and packaging now writes egg-info files using UTF-8,
   instead of the locale encoding.
 
 - Issue #8286: The distutils command sdist will print a warning message instead