I have the same problem as zakrebrowski. When I use his example I still do not get the characters right:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use XML::Simple;
use Data::Dumper;
use Encode;

my $content = "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\" ?>\n";
$content .= "<tag>\x{c3}\x{bb}</tag>\n";

print "input:\n$content\n";

my $xml = new XML::Simple;
my $data = $xml->XMLin($content, KeepRoot => 1);

encode_utf8($data->{'tag'});

print "data: ".$data->{'tag'}."\n";
print Dumper $data;
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returns:

input:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<tag>û</tag>

data: 

$VAR1 = {
          'tag' => "\x{fb}"
        };
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My real life code tries to parse an xml with xml::Simple and stores the data in a mysql-database. The database has the same encoding problems as above.

I am looking at this sample code for days now with no idea where to go on ... Any help is appreciated!