diff --git a/docs/conf.py b/docs/conf.py
index 57015f3f..ef0525e1 100644
--- a/docs/conf.py
+++ b/docs/conf.py
@@ -1,5 +1,3 @@
-# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
-#
 # Jedi documentation build configuration file, created by
 # sphinx-quickstart on Wed Dec 26 00:11:34 2012.
 #
diff --git a/jedi/_compatibility.py b/jedi/_compatibility.py
index 3b3e24fb..e9b27350 100644
--- a/jedi/_compatibility.py
+++ b/jedi/_compatibility.py
@@ -134,14 +134,6 @@ class ImplicitNSInfo(object):
         self.paths = paths
 
 
-try:
-    encoding = sys.stdout.encoding
-    if encoding is None:
-        encoding = 'utf-8'
-except AttributeError:
-    encoding = 'ascii'
-
-
 def u(string, errors='strict'):
     """Cast to unicode DAMMIT!
     Written because Python2 repr always implicitly casts to a string, so we
diff --git a/jedi/api/__init__.py b/jedi/api/__init__.py
index 2c9b3ef6..8dd8dbea 100644
--- a/jedi/api/__init__.py
+++ b/jedi/api/__init__.py
@@ -106,8 +106,7 @@ class Script(object):
         also ways to modify the sys path and other things.
     """
     def __init__(self, code=None, line=None, column=None, path=None,
-                 encoding=None, sys_path=None, environment=None,
-                 project=None, source=None):
+                 sys_path=None, environment=None, project=None, source=None):
         self._orig_path = path
         # An empty path (also empty string) should always result in no path.
         self.path = os.path.abspath(path) if path else None
@@ -160,7 +159,6 @@ class Script(object):
         self._module_node, code = self._inference_state.parse_and_get_code(
             code=code,
             path=self.path,
-            encoding=encoding,
             use_latest_grammar=path and path.endswith('.pyi'),
             cache=False,  # No disk cache, because the current script often changes.
             diff_cache=settings.fast_parser,
@@ -841,7 +839,7 @@ class Interpreter(Script):
         )
 
 
-def names(source=None, path=None, encoding='utf-8', all_scopes=False,
+def names(source=None, path=None, all_scopes=False,
           definitions=True, references=False, environment=None):
     warnings.warn(
         "Deprecated since version 0.16.0. Use Script(...).get_names instead.",
@@ -849,7 +847,7 @@ def names(source=None, path=None, encoding='utf-8', all_scopes=False,
         stacklevel=2
     )
 
-    return Script(source, path=path, encoding=encoding).get_names(
+    return Script(source, path=path).get_names(
         all_scopes=all_scopes,
         definitions=definitions,
         references=references,
diff --git a/jedi/inference/__init__.py b/jedi/inference/__init__.py
index c1c0047c..1a616d25 100644
--- a/jedi/inference/__init__.py
+++ b/jedi/inference/__init__.py
@@ -176,14 +176,14 @@ class InferenceState(object):
 
         return helpers.infer_call_of_leaf(context, name)
 
-    def parse_and_get_code(self, code=None, path=None, encoding='utf-8',
+    def parse_and_get_code(self, code=None, path=None,
                            use_latest_grammar=False, file_io=None, **kwargs):
         if code is None:
             if file_io is None:
                 file_io = FileIO(path)
             code = file_io.read()
         # We cannot just use parso, because it doesn't use errors='replace'.
-        code = parso.python_bytes_to_unicode(code, encoding=encoding, errors='replace')
+        code = parso.python_bytes_to_unicode(code, encoding='utf-8', errors='replace')
 
         if len(code) > settings._cropped_file_size:
             code = code[:settings._cropped_file_size]
diff --git a/scripts/profile_output.py b/scripts/profile_output.py
index 3497ce6b..36b230ba 100755
--- a/scripts/profile_output.py
+++ b/scripts/profile_output.py
@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env python3.6
-# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
 """
 Profile a piece of Python code with ``profile``. Tries a completion on a
 certain piece of code.
diff --git a/test/run.py b/test/run.py
index eca96229..70b2b399 100755
--- a/test/run.py
+++ b/test/run.py
@@ -400,7 +400,7 @@ def collect_dir_tests(base_dir, test_files, check_thirdparty=False):
 
             path = os.path.join(base_dir, f_name)
 
-            with open(path, encoding='utf-8', newline='') as f:
+            with open(path, newline='') as f:
                 source = f.read()
 
             for case in collect_file_tests(path, StringIO(source),
diff --git a/test/test_api/test_unicode.py b/test/test_api/test_unicode.py
index c1066acd..f488e508 100644
--- a/test/test_api/test_unicode.py
+++ b/test/test_api/test_unicode.py
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
 """
 All character set and unicode related tests.
 """
diff --git a/test/test_deprecation.py b/test/test_deprecation.py
index ad698250..39e2baa9 100644
--- a/test/test_deprecation.py
+++ b/test/test_deprecation.py
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
 import warnings
 
 import pytest
diff --git a/test/test_parso_integration/test_parser_utils.py b/test/test_parso_integration/test_parser_utils.py
index dd128b78..0a744639 100644
--- a/test/test_parso_integration/test_parser_utils.py
+++ b/test/test_parso_integration/test_parser_utils.py
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
 from jedi import parser_utils
 from parso import parse
 from parso.python import tree