diff --git a/src/libexpr/tests/flakeref.cc b/src/libexpr/tests/flakeref.cc
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..2b7809b93
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/libexpr/tests/flakeref.cc
@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+#include <gtest/gtest.h>
+
+#include "flake/flakeref.hh"
+
+namespace nix {
+
+/* ----------- tests for flake/flakeref.hh --------------------------------------------------*/
+
+    /* ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+     * to_string
+     * --------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
+
+    TEST(to_string, doesntReencodeUrl) {
+        auto s = "http://localhost:8181/test/+3d.tar.gz";
+        auto flakeref = parseFlakeRef(s);
+        auto parsed = flakeref.to_string();
+        auto expected = "http://localhost:8181/test/%2B3d.tar.gz";
+
+        ASSERT_EQ(parsed, expected);
+    }
+
+}
diff --git a/src/libutil/url.cc b/src/libutil/url.cc
index 9e44241ac..a8f7d39fd 100644
--- a/src/libutil/url.cc
+++ b/src/libutil/url.cc
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ ParsedURL parseURL(const std::string & url)
             .base = base,
             .scheme = scheme,
             .authority = authority,
-            .path = path,
+            .path = percentDecode(path),
             .query = decodeQuery(query),
             .fragment = percentDecode(std::string(fragment))
         };