diff --git a/CHANGELOG.rst b/CHANGELOG.rst
index 8e650702..bff0d698 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.rst
+++ b/CHANGELOG.rst
@@ -18,9 +18,9 @@ Each individual change should have a link to the pull request after the descript
 
 1.1.2 (2024-02-07)
 ------------------
-
 Added
 ^^^^^
+- Update OneHotEncodingTransformer to default to returning int8 columns `#175 <https://github.com/lvgig/tubular/pull/175>`_
 - Updated NullIndicator to return int8 columns `#173 https://github.com/lvgig/tubular/pull/173`_
 
 1.1.1 (2024-01-18)
diff --git a/tests/nominal/test_OneHotEncodingTransformer.py b/tests/nominal/test_OneHotEncodingTransformer.py
index 44388f67..a057877b 100644
--- a/tests/nominal/test_OneHotEncodingTransformer.py
+++ b/tests/nominal/test_OneHotEncodingTransformer.py
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+import numpy as np
 import pandas as pd
 import pytest
 import sklearn
@@ -49,7 +50,11 @@ def test_one_hot_encoder_init_called(self, mocker):
 
         Again not using ta.functions.assert_function_call for this as it does not handle self being passed to OneHotEncoder.init
         """
-        expected_keyword_args = {"sparse": False, "handle_unknown": "ignore"}
+        expected_keyword_args = {
+            "sparse": False,
+            "handle_unknown": "ignore",
+            "dtype": np.int8,
+        }
 
         mocker.patch("sklearn.preprocessing.OneHotEncoder.__init__")
 
@@ -435,12 +440,20 @@ def test_expected_output(self, df_test, expected):
         Also tests that OneHotEncodingTransformer.transform does not modify unrelated columns.
         """
         # transformer is fit on the whole dataset separately from the input df to work with the decorators
+        columns = ["b"]
         df_train = d.create_df_7()
-        x = OneHotEncodingTransformer(columns="b")
+        x = OneHotEncodingTransformer(columns=columns)
         x.fit(df_train)
 
         df_transformed = x.transform(df_test)
 
+        for col in [
+            column + f"_{value}"
+            for column in columns
+            for value in df_train[column].unique().tolist()
+        ]:
+            expected[col] = expected[col].astype(np.int8)
+
         ta.equality.assert_frame_equal_msg(
             expected=expected,
             actual=df_transformed,
@@ -513,11 +526,19 @@ def test_unseen_categories_encoded_as_all_zeroes(self, df_test, expected):
         """Test OneHotEncodingTransformer.transform encodes unseen categories correctly (all 0s)."""
         # transformer is fit on the whole dataset separately from the input df to work with the decorators
         df_train = d.create_df_7()
-        x = OneHotEncodingTransformer(columns=["a", "b", "c"], verbose=False)
+        columns = ["a", "b", "c"]
+        x = OneHotEncodingTransformer(columns=columns, verbose=False)
         x.fit(df_train)
 
         df_transformed = x.transform(df_test)
 
+        for col in [
+            column + f"_{value}"
+            for column in columns
+            for value in df_train[column].unique().tolist()
+        ]:
+            expected[col] = expected[col].astype(np.int8)
+
         ta.equality.assert_equal_dispatch(
             expected=expected,
             actual=df_transformed,
diff --git a/tubular/nominal.py b/tubular/nominal.py
index 93229a5d..2e57ba8e 100644
--- a/tubular/nominal.py
+++ b/tubular/nominal.py
@@ -1060,6 +1060,7 @@ def __init__(
         drop_original: bool = False,
         copy: bool = True,
         verbose: bool = False,
+        dtype: np.int8 = np.int8,
         **kwargs: dict[str, bool],
     ) -> None:
         BaseNominalTransformer.__init__(
@@ -1070,7 +1071,13 @@ def __init__(
         )
 
         # Set attributes for scikit-learn'S OneHotEncoder
-        OneHotEncoder.__init__(self, sparse=False, handle_unknown="ignore", **kwargs)
+        OneHotEncoder.__init__(
+            self,
+            sparse=False,
+            handle_unknown="ignore",
+            dtype=dtype,
+            **kwargs,
+        )
 
         # Set other class attrributes
         self.separator = separator