diff --git a/docs/changelog.rst b/docs/changelog.rst
index f15d36d42..f729f79e7 100644
--- a/docs/changelog.rst
+++ b/docs/changelog.rst
@@ -40,6 +40,8 @@ Detailed list of changes
 
 - Allow passing null bytes through the system clipboard (:iss:`5483`)
 
+- ssh kitten: Fix :envvar:`KITTY_PUBLIC_KEY` not being encoded properly when transmitting (:iss:`5496`)
+
 0.26.2 [2022-09-05]
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
diff --git a/kittens/ssh/main.py b/kittens/ssh/main.py
index 5037b474f..f4a8dd3f1 100644
--- a/kittens/ssh/main.py
+++ b/kittens/ssh/main.py
@@ -172,7 +172,8 @@ def make_tarfile(ssh_opts: SSHOptions, base_env: Dict[str, str], compression: st
     if ssh_opts.remote_kitty != 'no':
         env['KITTY_REMOTE'] = ssh_opts.remote_kitty
     if os.environ.get('KITTY_PUBLIC_KEY'):
-        env['KITTY_PUBLIC_KEY'] = os.environ['KITTY_PUBLIC_KEY']
+        env.pop('KITTY_PUBLIC_KEY', None)
+        literal_env['KITTY_PUBLIC_KEY'] = os.environ['KITTY_PUBLIC_KEY']
     env_script = serialize_env(literal_env, env, base_env, for_python=compression != 'gz')
     buf = io.BytesIO()
     with tarfile.open(mode=f'w:{compression}', fileobj=buf, encoding='utf-8') as tf: