diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/2329-hiera-lookup-plugin-return-type.yaml b/changelogs/fragments/2329-hiera-lookup-plugin-return-type.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..4cced727a2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/2329-hiera-lookup-plugin-return-type.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+bugfixes:
+  - hiera lookup plugin - converts the return type of plugin to unicode string (https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.general/pull/2329).
diff --git a/plugins/lookup/hiera.py b/plugins/lookup/hiera.py
index b5dca4bae7..e3adf3d9b9 100644
--- a/plugins/lookup/hiera.py
+++ b/plugins/lookup/hiera.py
@@ -63,6 +63,7 @@ import os
 
 from ansible.plugins.lookup import LookupBase
 from ansible.utils.cmd_functions import run_cmd
+from ansible.module_utils._text import to_text
 
 ANSIBLE_HIERA_CFG = os.getenv('ANSIBLE_HIERA_CFG', '/etc/hiera.yaml')
 ANSIBLE_HIERA_BIN = os.getenv('ANSIBLE_HIERA_BIN', '/usr/bin/hiera')
@@ -78,7 +79,7 @@ class Hiera(object):
         rc, output, err = run_cmd("{0} -c {1} {2}".format(
             ANSIBLE_HIERA_BIN, ANSIBLE_HIERA_CFG, hiera_key[0]))
 
-        return output.strip()
+        return to_text(output.strip())
 
 
 class LookupModule(LookupBase):