diff --git a/docs/changelog.rst b/docs/changelog.rst
index e728107..bda16ba 100644
--- a/docs/changelog.rst
+++ b/docs/changelog.rst
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ Changelog
   - Fix exception when body is empty (@keithprickett)
   - Add `pytest-recording` to the documentation as an alternative Pytest plugin (@Stranger6667)
   - Fix yarl and python3.5 version issue (@neozenith)
+  - Fix header matcher for boto3 - fixes #474 (@simahawk)
 -  2.1.0 - Add a `rewind` method to reset a cassette (thanks @khamidou)
    New error message with more details on why the cassette failed to play a request (thanks @arthurHamon2, @neozenith)
    Handle connect tunnel URI (thanks @jeking3)
diff --git a/tests/unit/test_matchers.py b/tests/unit/test_matchers.py
index 4d161ca..34eadd3 100644
--- a/tests/unit/test_matchers.py
+++ b/tests/unit/test_matchers.py
@@ -54,6 +54,16 @@ req2_body = (
     b"<member><name>a</name><value><string>1</string></value></member>"
     b"</struct></value></data></array></value></param></params></methodCall>"
 )
+boto3_bytes_headers = {
+    "X-Amz-Content-SHA256": b"UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD",
+    "Cache-Control": b"max-age=31536000, public",
+    "X-Amz-Date": b"20191102T143910Z",
+    "User-Agent": b"Boto3/1.9.102 Python/3.5.3 Linux/4.15.0-54-generic Botocore/1.12.253 Resource",
+    "Content-MD5": b"GQqjEXsRqrPyxfTl99nkAg==",
+    "Content-Type": b"text/plain",
+    "Expect": b"100-continue",
+    "Content-Length": "21",
+}
 
 
 @pytest.mark.parametrize(
@@ -110,6 +120,11 @@ req2_body = (
                 "POST", "http://host.com/", '{"b": 2, "a": 1}', {"content-type": "application/json"}
             ),
         ),
+        (
+            # special case for boto3 bytes headers
+            request.Request("POST", "http://aws.custom.com/", b"123", boto3_bytes_headers),
+            request.Request("POST", "http://aws.custom.com/", b"123", boto3_bytes_headers),
+        ),
     ],
 )
 def test_body_matcher_does_match(r1, r2):
diff --git a/vcr/matchers.py b/vcr/matchers.py
index 7a969f4..eabd61f 100644
--- a/vcr/matchers.py
+++ b/vcr/matchers.py
@@ -53,7 +53,10 @@ def headers(r1, r2):
 
 def _header_checker(value, header="Content-Type"):
     def checker(headers):
-        return value in headers.get(header, "").lower()
+        _header = headers.get(header, "")
+        if isinstance(_header, bytes):
+            _header = _header.decode("utf-8")
+        return value in _header.lower()
 
     return checker