diff --git a/scripts/checkpatch.pl b/scripts/checkpatch.pl
index c667d085ae..25bf43bad0 100755
--- a/scripts/checkpatch.pl
+++ b/scripts/checkpatch.pl
@@ -1186,6 +1186,8 @@ sub process {
 	my $in_header_lines = 1;
 	my $in_commit_log = 0;		#Scanning lines before patch
 
+	my $non_utf8_charset = 0;
+
 	our @report = ();
 	our $cnt_lines = 0;
 	our $cnt_error = 0;
@@ -1414,8 +1416,15 @@ sub process {
 			$in_commit_log = 1;
 		}
 
-# Still not yet in a patch, check for any UTF-8
-		if ($in_commit_log && $realfile =~ /^$/ &&
+# Check if there is UTF-8 in a commit log when a mail header has explicitly
+# declined it, i.e defined some charset where it is missing.
+		if ($in_header_lines &&
+		    $rawline =~ /^Content-Type:.+charset="(.+)".*$/ &&
+		    $1 !~ /utf-8/i) {
+			$non_utf8_charset = 1;
+		}
+
+		if ($in_commit_log && $non_utf8_charset && $realfile =~ /^$/ &&
 		    $rawline =~ /$NON_ASCII_UTF8/) {
 			WARN("8-bit UTF-8 used in possible commit log\n" . $herecurr);
 		}