diff --git a/spring-boot-autoconfigure/src/main/java/org/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/velocity/VelocityAutoConfiguration.java b/spring-boot-autoconfigure/src/main/java/org/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/velocity/VelocityAutoConfiguration.java
index 7c08177f84..2e0d4a32ef 100644
--- a/spring-boot-autoconfigure/src/main/java/org/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/velocity/VelocityAutoConfiguration.java
+++ b/spring-boot-autoconfigure/src/main/java/org/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/velocity/VelocityAutoConfiguration.java
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 /*
- * Copyright 2012-2014 the original author or authors.
+ * Copyright 2012-2015 the original author or authors.
  *
  * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
  * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
@@ -86,6 +86,7 @@ public class VelocityAutoConfiguration {
 			factory.setResourceLoaderPath(this.properties.getResourceLoaderPath());
 			factory.setPreferFileSystemAccess(this.properties.isPreferFileSystemAccess());
 			Properties velocityProperties = new Properties();
+			velocityProperties.setProperty("input.encoding", this.properties.getCharset());
 			velocityProperties.putAll(this.properties.getProperties());
 			factory.setVelocityProperties(velocityProperties);
 		}
diff --git a/spring-boot-autoconfigure/src/test/java/org/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/velocity/VelocityAutoConfigurationTests.java b/spring-boot-autoconfigure/src/test/java/org/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/velocity/VelocityAutoConfigurationTests.java
index 974e127b92..916cfbe76c 100644
--- a/spring-boot-autoconfigure/src/test/java/org/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/velocity/VelocityAutoConfigurationTests.java
+++ b/spring-boot-autoconfigure/src/test/java/org/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/velocity/VelocityAutoConfigurationTests.java
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 /*
- * Copyright 2012-2014 the original author or authors.
+ * Copyright 2012-2015 the original author or authors.
  *
  * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
  * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
@@ -109,6 +109,13 @@ public class VelocityAutoConfigurationTests {
 		assertThat(response.getContentType(), equalTo("application/json;charset=UTF-8"));
 	}
 
+	@Test
+	public void customCharset() throws Exception {
+		registerAndRefreshContext("spring.velocity.charset:ISO-8859-1");
+		assertThat(this.context.getBean(VelocityConfigurer.class).getVelocityEngine()
+				.getProperty("input.encoding"), equalTo((Object) "ISO-8859-1"));
+	}
+
 	@Test
 	public void customPrefix() throws Exception {
 		registerAndRefreshContext("spring.velocity.prefix:prefix/");
diff --git a/spring-boot-docs/src/main/asciidoc/appendix-application-properties.adoc b/spring-boot-docs/src/main/asciidoc/appendix-application-properties.adoc
index c957bd1ffc..ed962fa320 100644
--- a/spring-boot-docs/src/main/asciidoc/appendix-application-properties.adoc
+++ b/spring-boot-docs/src/main/asciidoc/appendix-application-properties.adoc
@@ -187,7 +187,7 @@ content into your application; rather pick only the properties that you need.
 	spring.velocity.allow-session-override=false
 	spring.velocity.cache=true
 	spring.velocity.check-template-location=true
-	spring.velocity.charset=UTF-8
+	spring.velocity.charset=UTF-8 # charset for input and output encoding
 	spring.velocity.content-type=text/html
 	spring.velocity.date-tool-attribute=
 	spring.velocity.expose-request-attributes=false