diff --git a/src/main/java/com/emarsys/escher/Helper.java b/src/main/java/com/emarsys/escher/Helper.java
index 5072369..7b7201e 100644
--- a/src/main/java/com/emarsys/escher/Helper.java
+++ b/src/main/java/com/emarsys/escher/Helper.java
@@ -41,13 +41,9 @@ public String canonicalize(EscherRequest request, List<String> signedHeaders) th
     }
 
 
-    private String canonicalizePath(EscherRequest request) throws EscherException {
-        try {
-            String path = request.getURI().toURL().getPath();
-            return path.equals("") ? "/" : path;
-        } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
-            throw new EscherException(e);
-        }
+    private String canonicalizePath(EscherRequest request) {
+        String path = request.getURI().getRawPath();
+        return path.isEmpty() ? "/" : path;
     }
 
 
@@ -72,7 +68,7 @@ private String queryParameterToString(NameValuePair entry) {
 
 
     public static String encodeURIComponent(String s) throws UnsupportedEncodingException {
-        // We need this to be uri encoded (' ' => '%20') not x-www-form-urlencoded (' ' => '+') with 
+        // We need this to be uri encoded (' ' => '%20') not x-www-form-urlencoded (' ' => '+') with
         // some of the RFC3986 reserved characters kept as they were (-._~) which is used by URLEncoder.
         // This will result an encoding method similar to other escher libs.
         return URLEncoder.encode(s, "UTF-8")
diff --git a/src/test/java/com/emarsys/escher/HelperTest.java b/src/test/java/com/emarsys/escher/HelperTest.java
index a9ae6b1..377517e 100644
--- a/src/test/java/com/emarsys/escher/HelperTest.java
+++ b/src/test/java/com/emarsys/escher/HelperTest.java
@@ -140,6 +140,23 @@ public void testCanonicalizeWithUrlParamsContainingSpecialCharacters() throws Ex
         assertThat(canonicalized, containsString("specialchars=-_.~"));
     }
 
+    @Test
+    public void testCanonicalizeWithRelativeUri() throws Exception {
+        TestParam param = parseTestData("get-vanilla");
+        TestParam.Request paramRequest = param.getRequest();
+        paramRequest.setUrl(paramRequest.getUrl() + "?name=John%2BWick");
+
+        URI relativeUri = new URI(paramRequest.getUrl());
+
+        EscherRequestImpl request = new EscherRequestImpl(paramRequest.getMethod(), relativeUri, new ArrayList<>(), paramRequest.getBody());
+
+        Helper helper = new Helper(createConfig(param));
+
+        String canonicalized = helper.canonicalize(request, param.getHeadersToSign());
+
+        assertThat(canonicalized, containsString("name=John%2BWick"));
+    }
+
 
     @Test
     @UseDataProvider("getAddMandatoryHeadersCases")