diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 346208b2..b3c470ad 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -11,6 +11,8 @@ Bug fixes:
   [BUG #2836](https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep/issues/2836),
   [BUG #2933](https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep/pull/2933):
   Fix bug related to gitignores from parent directories.
+* [BUG #2177](https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep/issues/2177):
+  Ignore a UTF-8 BOM marker at the start of `.gitignore` (and similar files).
 
 Feature enhancements:
 
diff --git a/crates/ignore/src/gitignore.rs b/crates/ignore/src/gitignore.rs
index 19a347cd..eeb51b82 100644
--- a/crates/ignore/src/gitignore.rs
+++ b/crates/ignore/src/gitignore.rs
@@ -402,6 +402,12 @@ impl GitignoreBuilder {
                     break;
                 }
             };
+
+            // Match Git's handling of .gitignore files that begin with the Unicode BOM
+            const UTF8_BOM: &str = "\u{feff}";
+            let line =
+                if i == 0 { line.trim_start_matches(UTF8_BOM) } else { &line };
+
             if let Err(err) = self.add_line(Some(path.to_path_buf()), &line) {
                 errs.push(err.tagged(path, lineno));
             }
diff --git a/crates/ignore/tests/gitignore_skip_bom.gitignore b/crates/ignore/tests/gitignore_skip_bom.gitignore
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..a78c13a9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/crates/ignore/tests/gitignore_skip_bom.gitignore
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+ignore/this/path
+# This file begins with a BOM (U+FEFF)
diff --git a/crates/ignore/tests/gitignore_skip_bom.rs b/crates/ignore/tests/gitignore_skip_bom.rs
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..14d533d6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/crates/ignore/tests/gitignore_skip_bom.rs
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+use ignore::gitignore::GitignoreBuilder;
+
+const IGNORE_FILE: &'static str = "tests/gitignore_skip_bom.gitignore";
+
+/// Skip a Byte-Order Mark (BOM) at the beginning of the file, matching Git's
+/// behavior.
+///
+/// Ref: <https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep/issues/2177>
+#[test]
+fn gitignore_skip_bom() {
+    let mut builder = GitignoreBuilder::new("ROOT");
+    let error = builder.add(IGNORE_FILE);
+    assert!(error.is_none(), "failed to open gitignore file");
+    let g = builder.build().unwrap();
+
+    assert!(g.matched("ignore/this/path", false).is_ignore());
+}