diff --git a/Objects/unicodeobject.c b/Objects/unicodeobject.c
index 0c5c485ebc2..541ded8bacd 100644
--- a/Objects/unicodeobject.c
+++ b/Objects/unicodeobject.c
@@ -8397,7 +8397,7 @@ PyUnicode_EncodeCharmap(const Py_UNICODE *p,
         return NULL;
     result = _PyUnicode_EncodeCharmap(unicode, mapping, errors);
     Py_DECREF(unicode);
-    return NULL;
+    return result;
 }
 
 PyObject *