diff --git a/lisp/loadup.el b/lisp/loadup.el
index 8ad52695e7b..1a6aafb6aad 100644
--- a/lisp/loadup.el
+++ b/lisp/loadup.el
@@ -76,6 +76,7 @@
 (load "international/mule-cmds")
 (load "case-table")
 (load "international/characters")
+(load "international/utf-8")
 
 (let ((set-case-syntax-set-multibyte t))
   (load "international/latin-1")