diff --git a/.changeset/big-plants-joke.md b/.changeset/big-plants-joke.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b434e65
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.changeset/big-plants-joke.md
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+'@powersync/mysql-zongji': patch
+---
+
+Fix decoding varchar and string values with utf8mb3 and utf8mb4 charsets.
diff --git a/lib/common.js b/lib/common.js
index 6b4dbe2..f8bf0de 100644
--- a/lib/common.js
+++ b/lib/common.js
@@ -443,6 +443,18 @@ exports.readMysqlValue = function (
       } else if (defPrefix === 'varbin') {
         result = parser.parseBuffer(size);
       } else {
+        if (column.charset !== null) {
+          switch (column.charset) {
+            // Javascript UTF8 always allows up to 4 bytes per character
+            case 'utf8mb3':
+            case 'utf8mb4':
+              column.charset = 'utf8';
+              break;
+          }
+
+          parser._encoding = column.charset;
+        }
+
         result = parser.parseString(size);
       }
       break;
diff --git a/test/types.js b/test/types.js
index 8f18323..599d5d9 100644
--- a/test/types.js
+++ b/test/types.js
@@ -68,32 +68,24 @@ function defineTypeTest(name, fields, testRows, customTest) {
           }
         };
 
-        expectEvents(
-          test,
-          eventLog,
-          [
-            expectedWrite
-          ],
-          testRows.length,
-          () => {
-            test.equal(errorLog.length, 0);
+        expectEvents(test, eventLog, [expectedWrite], testRows.length, () => {
+          test.equal(errorLog.length, 0);
 
-            const binlogRows = eventLog.reduce((prev, curr) => {
-              if (curr.getTypeName() === 'WriteRows') {
-                prev = prev.concat(curr.rows);
-              }
-              return prev;
-            }, []);
-
-            if (customTest) {
-              customTest.bind(selectResult)(test, { rows: binlogRows });
-            } else {
-              assert.deepEqual(selectResult, binlogRows);
+          const binlogRows = eventLog.reduce((prev, curr) => {
+            if (curr.getTypeName() === 'WriteRows') {
+              prev = prev.concat(curr.rows);
             }
+            return prev;
+          }, []);
 
-            test.end();
+          if (customTest) {
+            customTest.bind(selectResult)(test, { rows: binlogRows });
+          } else {
+            assert.deepEqual(selectResult, binlogRows);
           }
-        );
+
+          test.end();
+        });
       });
     });
   });
@@ -293,3 +285,12 @@ defineTypeTest(
     [null, null, null, null]
   ]
 );
+
+defineTypeTest(
+  'charsets',
+  ['CHAR COLLATE latin1_general_ci', 'VARCHAR(15) COLLATE latin1_general_ci', 'TEXT COLLATE latin1_general_ci'],
+  [
+    ["'ascii only'", "'ascii only'", "'ascii only'"],
+    ["'João'", "'João'", "'João'"]
+  ]
+);