diff --git a/Lib/test/test_re.py b/Lib/test/test_re.py
index 407f3468e86671..9acd5abbfd7776 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_re.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_re.py
@@ -1334,7 +1334,7 @@ def test_ascii_and_unicode_flag(self):
 
     def test_locale_flag(self):
         import locale
-        enc = locale.getpreferredencoding(False)
+        _, enc = locale.getlocale(locale.LC_CTYPE)
         # Search non-ASCII letter
         for i in range(128, 256):
             try: