diff --git a/lisp/international/mule-cmds.el b/lisp/international/mule-cmds.el
index feed9870a8e..f8b32462946 100644
--- a/lisp/international/mule-cmds.el
+++ b/lisp/international/mule-cmds.el
@@ -1270,7 +1270,7 @@ in the format of Lisp expression for registering each input method.
 Emacs loads this file at startup time.")
 
 (defvar leim-list-header (format
-";;; %s -- list of LEIM (Library of Emacs Input Method) -*-coding: iso-2022-7bit;-*-
+";;; %s -- list of LEIM (Library of Emacs Input Method) -*-coding: utf-8;-*-
 ;;
 ;; This file contains a list of LEIM (Library of Emacs Input Method)
 ;; methods in the same directory as this file.  Loading this file