diff --git a/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Core_and_Builtins/2025-04-13-17-18-01.gh-issue-124476.fvGfQ7.rst b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Core_and_Builtins/2025-04-13-17-18-01.gh-issue-124476.fvGfQ7.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000000..be0ecee95ded39
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Core_and_Builtins/2025-04-13-17-18-01.gh-issue-124476.fvGfQ7.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Fix decoding from the locale encoding in the C.UTF-8 locale.
diff --git a/Python/fileutils.c b/Python/fileutils.c
index 95b64ed76fb974..78603d40704f14 100644
--- a/Python/fileutils.c
+++ b/Python/fileutils.c
@@ -528,15 +528,7 @@ decode_current_locale(const char* arg, wchar_t **wstr, size_t *wlen,
             break;
         }
 
-        if (converted == INCOMPLETE_CHARACTER) {
-            /* Incomplete character. This should never happen,
-               since we provide everything that we have -
-               unless there is a bug in the C library, or I
-               misunderstood how mbrtowc works. */
-            goto decode_error;
-        }
-
-        if (converted == DECODE_ERROR) {
+        if (converted == DECODE_ERROR || converted == INCOMPLETE_CHARACTER) {
             if (!surrogateescape) {
                 goto decode_error;
             }