diff --git a/src/serialize/writer.rs b/src/serialize/writer.rs
index 85e07e00..4edbc446 100644
--- a/src/serialize/writer.rs
+++ b/src/serialize/writer.rs
@@ -27,6 +27,9 @@ impl BytesWriter {
 
     pub fn finish(&mut self) -> NonNull<PyObject> {
         unsafe {
+            unsafe {
+                std::ptr::write(self.buffer_ptr(), 0);
+            };
             (*self.bytes.cast::<PyVarObject>()).ob_size = self.len as Py_ssize_t;
             self.resize(self.len as isize);
             NonNull::new_unchecked(self.bytes as *mut PyObject)
diff --git a/test/test_api.py b/test/test_api.py
index 13215d5f..0e5a6f14 100644
--- a/test/test_api.py
+++ b/test/test_api.py
@@ -200,3 +200,10 @@ def test_bytes_buffer(self):
         self.assertEqual(
             orjson.dumps([a, b, c]), f'["{a}","{b}","{c}"]'.encode("utf-8")
         )
+
+    def test_bytes_null_terminated(self):
+        """
+        dumps() PyBytesObject buffer is null-terminated
+        """
+        # would raise ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: b'1596728892'
+        int(orjson.dumps(1596728892))