diff --git a/src/transformers/tokenization_utils_base.py b/src/transformers/tokenization_utils_base.py
index 438ef1c8a4a5..b52a93ae9484 100644
--- a/src/transformers/tokenization_utils_base.py
+++ b/src/transformers/tokenization_utils_base.py
@@ -1874,7 +1874,7 @@ def apply_chat_template(
                     **template_kwargs,
                 )
             if continue_final_message:
-                final_message = chat[-1]["content"]
+                final_message = chat[-1]["content"].strip()
                 rendered_chat = rendered_chat[: rendered_chat.rindex(final_message) + len(final_message)].rstrip()
             rendered.append(rendered_chat)