diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index a1c56d05..08146516 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,6 +1,13 @@
 Current release
 ---------------
 
+What's new in psycopg 2.8.6
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+- Fixed memory leak changing connection encoding to the current one
+  (:ticket:`#1101`).
+
+
 What's new in psycopg 2.8.5
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
diff --git a/psycopg/connection_int.c b/psycopg/connection_int.c
index 78dbd469..da8a4644 100644
--- a/psycopg/connection_int.c
+++ b/psycopg/connection_int.c
@@ -1389,7 +1389,10 @@ conn_set_client_encoding(connectionObject *self, const char *pgenc)
 
     /* If the current encoding is equal to the requested one we don't
        issue any query to the backend */
-    if (strcmp(self->encoding, clean_enc) == 0) return 0;
+    if (strcmp(self->encoding, clean_enc) == 0) {
+        res = 0;
+        goto exit;
+    }
 
     Py_BEGIN_ALLOW_THREADS;
     pthread_mutex_lock(&self->lock);