diff --git a/sql/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/execution/datasources/csv/CSVRelation.scala b/sql/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/execution/datasources/csv/CSVRelation.scala
index d7ce9a0ce8894..7704f9d3d3015 100644
--- a/sql/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/execution/datasources/csv/CSVRelation.scala
+++ b/sql/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/execution/datasources/csv/CSVRelation.scala
@@ -17,12 +17,15 @@
 
 package org.apache.spark.sql.execution.datasources.csv
 
+import java.nio.charset.Charset
+
 import scala.util.control.NonFatal
 
+import org.apache.hadoop.conf.Configuration
 import org.apache.hadoop.fs.{FileStatus, Path}
-import org.apache.hadoop.io.{NullWritable, Text}
-import org.apache.hadoop.mapreduce.RecordWriter
-import org.apache.hadoop.mapreduce.TaskAttemptContext
+import org.apache.hadoop.io.{LongWritable, NullWritable, Text}
+import org.apache.hadoop.mapreduce.{InputSplit, RecordReader, RecordWriter, TaskAttemptContext}
+import org.apache.hadoop.mapreduce.lib.input.{LineRecordReader, TextInputFormat}
 import org.apache.hadoop.mapreduce.lib.output.TextOutputFormat
 
 import org.apache.spark.Logging
@@ -113,6 +116,71 @@ object CSVRelation extends Logging {
   }
 }
 
+/**
+ * Because `TextInputFormat` in Hadoop does not support non-ascii compatible encodings,
+ * We need another `InputFormat` to handle the encodings. See SPARK-13108.
+ */
+private[csv] class EncodingTextInputFormat extends TextInputFormat {
+  override def createRecordReader(
+      split: InputSplit,
+      context: TaskAttemptContext): RecordReader[LongWritable, Text] = {
+    val conf: Configuration = {
+      // Use reflection to get the Configuration. This is necessary because TaskAttemptContext is
+      // a class in Hadoop 1.x and an interface in Hadoop 2.x.
+      val method = context.getClass.getMethod("getConfiguration")
+      method.invoke(context).asInstanceOf[Configuration]
+    }
+    val charset = Charset.forName(conf.get(EncodingTextInputFormat.ENCODING_KEY, "UTF-8"))
+    val charsetName = charset.name
+    val safeRecordDelimiterBytes = {
+      val delimiter = "\n"
+      val recordDelimiterBytes = delimiter.getBytes(charset)
+      EncodingTextInputFormat.stripBOM(charsetName, recordDelimiterBytes)
+    }
+
+    new LineRecordReader(safeRecordDelimiterBytes) {
+      var isFirst = true
+      override def getCurrentValue: Text = {
+        val value = super.getCurrentValue
+        if (isFirst) {
+          isFirst = false
+          val safeBytes = EncodingTextInputFormat.stripBOM(charsetName, value.getBytes)
+          new Text(safeBytes)
+        } else {
+          value
+        }
+      }
+    }
+  }
+}
+
+private[csv] object EncodingTextInputFormat {
+  // configuration key for encoding type
+  val ENCODING_KEY = "encodinginputformat.encoding"
+  // BOM bytes for UTF-8, UTF-16 and UTF-32
+  private val utf8BOM = Array(0xEF.toByte, 0xBB.toByte, 0xBF.toByte)
+  private val utf16beBOM = Array(0xFE.toByte, 0xFF.toByte)
+  private val utf16leBOM = Array(0xFF.toByte, 0xFE.toByte)
+  private val utf32beBOM = Array(0x00.toByte, 0x00.toByte, 0xFE.toByte, 0xFF.toByte)
+  private val utf32leBOM = Array(0xFF.toByte, 0xFE.toByte, 0x00.toByte, 0x00.toByte)
+
+  def stripBOM(charsetName: String, bytes: Array[Byte]): Array[Byte] = {
+    charsetName match {
+      case "UTF-8" if bytes.startsWith(utf8BOM) =>
+        bytes.slice(utf8BOM.length, bytes.length)
+      case "UTF-16" | "UTF-16BE" if bytes.startsWith(utf16beBOM) =>
+        bytes.slice(utf16beBOM.length, bytes.length)
+      case "UTF-16LE" if bytes.startsWith(utf16leBOM) =>
+        bytes.slice(utf16leBOM.length, bytes.length)
+      case "UTF-32" | "UTF-32BE" if bytes.startsWith(utf32beBOM) =>
+        bytes.slice(utf32beBOM.length, bytes.length)
+      case "UTF-32LE" if bytes.startsWith(utf32leBOM) =>
+        bytes.slice(utf32leBOM.length, bytes.length)
+      case _ => bytes
+    }
+  }
+}
+
 private[sql] class CSVOutputWriterFactory(params: CSVOptions) extends OutputWriterFactory {
   override def newInstance(
       path: String,
@@ -120,11 +188,11 @@ private[sql] class CSVOutputWriterFactory(params: CSVOptions) extends OutputWrit
       dataSchema: StructType,
       context: TaskAttemptContext): OutputWriter = {
     if (bucketId.isDefined) sys.error("csv doesn't support bucketing")
-    new CsvOutputWriter(path, dataSchema, context, params)
+    new CSVOutputWriter(path, dataSchema, context, params)
   }
 }
 
-private[sql] class CsvOutputWriter(
+private[sql] class CSVOutputWriter(
     path: String,
     dataSchema: StructType,
     context: TaskAttemptContext,
diff --git a/sql/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/execution/datasources/csv/DefaultSource.scala b/sql/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/execution/datasources/csv/DefaultSource.scala
index aff672281d640..9d7b21ae026c3 100644
--- a/sql/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/execution/datasources/csv/DefaultSource.scala
+++ b/sql/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/execution/datasources/csv/DefaultSource.scala
@@ -165,8 +165,10 @@ class DefaultSource extends FileFormat with DataSourceRegister {
       sqlContext.sparkContext.textFile(location)
     } else {
       val charset = options.charset
+      val conf = sqlContext.sparkContext.hadoopConfiguration
+      conf.set(EncodingTextInputFormat.ENCODING_KEY, charset)
       sqlContext.sparkContext
-        .hadoopFile[LongWritable, Text, TextInputFormat](location)
+        .newAPIHadoopFile[LongWritable, Text, EncodingTextInputFormat](location)
         .mapPartitions(_.map(pair => new String(pair._2.getBytes, 0, pair._2.getLength, charset)))
     }
   }
diff --git a/sql/core/src/test/resources/cars_utf-16.csv b/sql/core/src/test/resources/cars_utf-16.csv
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..a94ed8cb14be5
Binary files /dev/null and b/sql/core/src/test/resources/cars_utf-16.csv differ
diff --git a/sql/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/execution/datasources/csv/CSVSuite.scala b/sql/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/execution/datasources/csv/CSVSuite.scala
index 53027bb698bf8..2d2621a8d74aa 100644
--- a/sql/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/execution/datasources/csv/CSVSuite.scala
+++ b/sql/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/execution/datasources/csv/CSVSuite.scala
@@ -36,6 +36,7 @@ class CSVSuite extends QueryTest with SharedSQLContext with SQLTestUtils {
   private val carsFile = "cars.csv"
   private val carsMalformedFile = "cars-malformed.csv"
   private val carsFile8859 = "cars_iso-8859-1.csv"
+  private val carsFileUTF16 = "cars_utf-16.csv"
   private val carsTsvFile = "cars.tsv"
   private val carsAltFile = "cars-alternative.csv"
   private val carsUnbalancedQuotesFile = "cars-unbalanced-quotes.csv"
@@ -152,6 +153,17 @@ class CSVSuite extends QueryTest with SharedSQLContext with SQLTestUtils {
     assert(exception.getMessage.contains("1-9588-osi"))
   }
 
+  test("non-ascii compatible encoding") {
+    val cars = sqlContext
+      .read
+      .format("csv")
+      .option("charset", "utf-16")
+      .option("header", "true")
+      .load(testFile(carsFileUTF16))
+
+    verifyCars(cars, withHeader = true, checkTypes = false)
+  }
+
   test("test different encoding") {
     // scalastyle:off
     sqlContext.sql(