diff --git a/news/changelog-1.6.md b/news/changelog-1.6.md
index e628aa1fbf..31068fb33f 100644
--- a/news/changelog-1.6.md
+++ b/news/changelog-1.6.md
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
 ## In this release
 
 - ([#11596](https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto-cli/issues/11596)): Fix regression with h1 and title processing in non-website project, related to a fix for breadcrumbs in website projects ([#11224](https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto-cli/issues/11596)).
+- ([#11752](https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto-cli/issues/11752)): Fix regression with non-alphanumeric characters in `categories` preventing correct filtering of listing.
 
 ## In previous releases
 
diff --git a/src/resources/projects/website/listing/quarto-listing.js b/src/resources/projects/website/listing/quarto-listing.js
index 54d0e1e7f2..e9a07b2ea3 100644
--- a/src/resources/projects/website/listing/quarto-listing.js
+++ b/src/resources/projects/website/listing/quarto-listing.js
@@ -2,7 +2,8 @@ const kProgressiveAttr = "data-src";
 let categoriesLoaded = false;
 
 window.quartoListingCategory = (category) => {
-  category = atob(category);
+  // category is URI encoded in EJS template for UTF-8 support
+  category = decodeURIComponent(atob(category));
   if (categoriesLoaded) {
     activateCategory(category);
     setCategoryHash(category);