diff --git a/internal/walker/rewriter.go b/internal/walker/rewriter.go
index ece073f7b..6f063831e 100644
--- a/internal/walker/rewriter.go
+++ b/internal/walker/rewriter.go
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ package walker
 
 import (
 	"context"
+	"fmt"
 	"path"
 
 	"github.com/restic/restic/internal/debug"
@@ -28,6 +29,17 @@ func FilterTree(ctx context.Context, repo BlobLoadSaver, nodepath string, nodeID
 		return restic.ID{}, err
 	}
 
+	// check that we can properly encode this tree without losing information
+	// The alternative of using json/Decoder.DisallowUnknownFields() doesn't work as we use
+	// a custom UnmarshalJSON to decode trees, see also https://github.com/golang/go/issues/41144
+	testID, err := restic.SaveTree(ctx, repo, curTree)
+	if err != nil {
+		return restic.ID{}, err
+	}
+	if nodeID != testID {
+		return restic.ID{}, fmt.Errorf("cannot encode tree at %q without loosing information", nodepath)
+	}
+
 	debug.Log("filterTree: %s, nodeId: %s\n", nodepath, nodeID.Str())
 
 	changed := false
diff --git a/internal/walker/rewriter_test.go b/internal/walker/rewriter_test.go
index e4ae33ec5..3dcf0ac9e 100644
--- a/internal/walker/rewriter_test.go
+++ b/internal/walker/rewriter_test.go
@@ -204,3 +204,19 @@ func TestRewriter(t *testing.T) {
 		})
 	}
 }
+
+func TestRewriterFailOnUnknownFields(t *testing.T) {
+	tm := WritableTreeMap{TreeMap{}}
+	node := []byte(`{"nodes":[{"name":"subfile","type":"file","mtime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","atime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","ctime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","uid":0,"gid":0,"content":null,"unknown_field":42}]}`)
+	id := restic.Hash(node)
+	tm.TreeMap[id] = node
+
+	ctx, cancel := context.WithCancel(context.TODO())
+	defer cancel()
+	// use nil visitor to crash if the tree loading works unexpectedly
+	_, err := FilterTree(ctx, tm, "/", id, nil)
+
+	if err == nil {
+		t.Error("missing error on unknown field")
+	}
+}