diff --git a/src/rules.ts b/src/rules.ts
index aeb880c597..568fca4e52 100644
--- a/src/rules.ts
+++ b/src/rules.ts
@@ -282,7 +282,7 @@ const blockPedantic: Record<BlockKeys, RegExp> = {
 
 const escape = /^\\([!"#$%&'()*+,\-./:;<=>?@\[\]\\^_`{|}~])/;
 const inlineCode = /^(`+)([^`]|[^`][\s\S]*?[^`])\1(?!`)/;
-const br = /^( {2,}|\\)\n(?!\s*$)/;
+const br = /^( {2,}|\\)\n(?!\s*$)[ \t]*/;
 const inlineText = /^(`+|[^`])(?:(?= {2,}\n)|[\s\S]*?(?:(?=[\\<!\[`*_]|\b_|$)|[^ ](?= {2,}\n)))/;
 
 // list of unicode punctuation marks, plus any missing characters from CommonMark spec
diff --git a/test/specs/new/hardbreak_leading_whitespace.html b/test/specs/new/hardbreak_leading_whitespace.html
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..69bbbf9f38
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/specs/new/hardbreak_leading_whitespace.html
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+<p>foo<br>bar</p>
+<p>foo<br>bar</p>
+<p>foo<br>bar</p>
+<p>foo<br>bar</p>
+<p>foo
+	bar</p>
+<p>foo
+bar</p>
diff --git a/test/specs/new/hardbreak_leading_whitespace.md b/test/specs/new/hardbreak_leading_whitespace.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..14ec0ca7a6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/specs/new/hardbreak_leading_whitespace.md
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+---
+renderExact: true
+---
+foo  
+     bar
+
+foo\
+     bar
+
+foo  
+	bar
+
+foo  
+  	 bar
+
+foo
+	bar
+
+foo
+bar