diff --git a/sjsonnet/src/sjsonnet/ValVisitor.scala b/sjsonnet/src/sjsonnet/ValVisitor.scala
index 33eda06c..0ab5487b 100644
--- a/sjsonnet/src/sjsonnet/ValVisitor.scala
+++ b/sjsonnet/src/sjsonnet/ValVisitor.scala
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ class ValVisitor(pos: Position) extends JsVisitor[Val, Val] { self =>
     var key: String = _
     def subVisitor: Visitor[?, ?] = self
     def visitKey(index: Int): upickle.core.StringVisitor.type = upickle.core.StringVisitor
-    def visitKeyValue(s: Any): Unit = key = s.toString
+    def visitKeyValue(s: Any): Unit = key = ValVisitor.replaceLoneSurrogates(s.toString)
     def visitValue(v: Val, index: Int): Unit = {
       cache.put(key, v)
       allKeys.put(key, false)
@@ -52,5 +52,48 @@ class ValVisitor(pos: Position) extends JsVisitor[Val, Val] { self =>
       }
     )
 
-  def visitString(s: CharSequence, index: Int): Val = Val.Str(pos, s.toString)
+  def visitString(s: CharSequence, index: Int): Val =
+    Val.Str(pos, ValVisitor.replaceLoneSurrogates(s.toString))
+}
+
+object ValVisitor {
+
+  /**
+   * Replace unpaired UTF-16 surrogates with U+FFFD. JSON inputs may contain lone
+   * surrogate escapes (RFC 8259 lets implementations accept them); keeping them
+   * would corrupt to '?' on UTF-8 output. Matches the replacement policy of
+   * std.char / %c and go-jsonnet's JSON decoding. Strings without surrogates are
+   * returned as-is without allocation.
+   */
+  private[sjsonnet] def replaceLoneSurrogates(s: String): String = {
+    val len = s.length
+    var i = 0
+    while (i < len) {
+      val c = s.charAt(i)
+      if (c >= 0xd800 && c <= 0xdfff) {
+        val sb = new java.lang.StringBuilder(len)
+        sb.append(s, 0, i)
+        while (i < len) {
+          val ch = s.charAt(i)
+          if (
+            Character.isHighSurrogate(ch) && i + 1 < len &&
+            Character.isLowSurrogate(s.charAt(i + 1))
+          ) {
+            sb.append(ch)
+            sb.append(s.charAt(i + 1))
+            i += 2
+          } else if (ch >= 0xd800 && ch <= 0xdfff) {
+            sb.append('\ufffd')
+            i += 1
+          } else {
+            sb.append(ch)
+            i += 1
+          }
+        }
+        return sb.toString
+      }
+      i += 1
+    }
+    s
+  }
 }
diff --git a/sjsonnet/test/resources/new_test_suite/parseJson_lone_surrogate.jsonnet b/sjsonnet/test/resources/new_test_suite/parseJson_lone_surrogate.jsonnet
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..d3d75782
--- /dev/null
+++ b/sjsonnet/test/resources/new_test_suite/parseJson_lone_surrogate.jsonnet
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+// Lone surrogates in JSON strings are replaced with U+FFFD, matching
+// go-jsonnet and sjsonnet's own std.char / %c surrogate policy. Keeping
+// them would corrupt to '?' on UTF-8 output.
+std.assertEqual(std.parseJson('"\\ud800"'), "\ufffd") &&
+std.assertEqual(std.parseJson('"\\ud800\\ud800"'), "\ufffd\ufffd") &&
+std.assertEqual(std.parseJson('"a\\udc00b"'), "a\ufffdb") &&
+// a valid surrogate pair is preserved
+std.assertEqual(std.parseJson('"\\ud83d\\ude00"'), "\ud83d\ude00") &&
+// object keys are sanitized too
+std.assertEqual(std.parseJson('{"\\ud800": 1}')['\ufffd'], 1)
diff --git a/sjsonnet/test/resources/new_test_suite/parseJson_lone_surrogate.jsonnet.golden b/sjsonnet/test/resources/new_test_suite/parseJson_lone_surrogate.jsonnet.golden
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..27ba77dd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/sjsonnet/test/resources/new_test_suite/parseJson_lone_surrogate.jsonnet.golden
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+true