diff --git a/examples/split_placement/config/ppo_trainer_split.yaml b/examples/split_placement/config/ppo_trainer_split.yaml
index 7d918a58ec4..959368f1dbe 100644
--- a/examples/split_placement/config/ppo_trainer_split.yaml
+++ b/examples/split_placement/config/ppo_trainer_split.yaml
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ data:
   train_files: ~/data/rlhf/gsm8k/train.parquet
   val_files: ~/data/rlhf/gsm8k/test.parquet
   prompt_key: prompt
+  custom_chat_template: null
   max_prompt_length: 512
   max_response_length: 512
   train_batch_size: 1024
diff --git a/examples/split_placement/main_ppo_split.py b/examples/split_placement/main_ppo_split.py
index 35e1d3cfe33..a727d18bab9 100644
--- a/examples/split_placement/main_ppo_split.py
+++ b/examples/split_placement/main_ppo_split.py
@@ -120,7 +120,8 @@ def main_task(config):
     # instantiate tokenizer
     from verl.utils import hf_tokenizer
 
-    tokenizer = hf_tokenizer(local_path)
+    custom_chat_template = config.data.get('custom_chat_template', None)
+    tokenizer = hf_tokenizer(local_path, custom_chat_template=custom_chat_template)
 
     # define worker classes
     if config.actor_rollout_ref.actor.strategy == "fsdp":
diff --git a/verl/trainer/config/ppo_trainer.yaml b/verl/trainer/config/ppo_trainer.yaml
index 1b6668dce8a..bcd697a330b 100644
--- a/verl/trainer/config/ppo_trainer.yaml
+++ b/verl/trainer/config/ppo_trainer.yaml
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ data:
   val_files: ~/data/rlhf/gsm8k/test.parquet
   prompt_key: prompt
   reward_fn_key: data_source
+  custom_chat_template: null
   max_prompt_length: 512
   max_response_length: 512
   train_batch_size: 1024
diff --git a/verl/trainer/main_ppo.py b/verl/trainer/main_ppo.py
index fab382a37bb..375bded48f8 100644
--- a/verl/trainer/main_ppo.py
+++ b/verl/trainer/main_ppo.py
@@ -98,8 +98,12 @@ def run(self, config):
         # instantiate tokenizer
         from verl.utils import hf_processor, hf_tokenizer
 
-        trust_remote_code = config.data.get("trust_remote_code", False)
-        tokenizer = hf_tokenizer(local_path, trust_remote_code=trust_remote_code)
+
+        custom_chat_template = config.data.get('custom_chat_template', None)
+        trust_remote_code = config.data.get('trust_remote_code', False)
+        tokenizer = hf_tokenizer(local_path, 
+                                 trust_remote_code=trust_remote_code, 
+                                 custom_chat_template=custom_chat_template)
         processor = hf_processor(local_path, use_fast=True)  # used for multimodal LLM, could be none
 
         # define worker classes
diff --git a/verl/utils/dataset/sft_dataset.py b/verl/utils/dataset/sft_dataset.py
index aef245cfacc..6815dc6b475 100644
--- a/verl/utils/dataset/sft_dataset.py
+++ b/verl/utils/dataset/sft_dataset.py
@@ -45,6 +45,7 @@ def __init__(self, parquet_files: Union[str, List[str]], tokenizer, config):
         response_dict_keys = config.get("response_dict_keys", None)
         max_length = config.get("max_length", 1024)
         truncation = config.get("truncation", "error")
+        custom_chat_template = config.get('custom_chat_template', None)
 
         assert truncation in ["error", "left", "right"]
         self.truncation = truncation
@@ -54,7 +55,7 @@ def __init__(self, parquet_files: Union[str, List[str]], tokenizer, config):
 
         self.parquet_files = parquet_files
         if isinstance(tokenizer, str):
-            tokenizer = hf_tokenizer(tokenizer)
+            tokenizer = hf_tokenizer(tokenizer, custom_chat_template=custom_chat_template)
         self.tokenizer: PreTrainedTokenizer = tokenizer
 
         self.prompt_key = prompt_key if isinstance(prompt_key, (tuple, list)) else [prompt_key]
diff --git a/verl/utils/tokenizer.py b/verl/utils/tokenizer.py
index 019683f02cc..a4ba0755f19 100644
--- a/verl/utils/tokenizer.py
+++ b/verl/utils/tokenizer.py
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ def set_pad_token_id(tokenizer):
         warnings.warn(f"tokenizer.pad_token is None. Now set to {tokenizer.eos_token}", stacklevel=1)
 
 
-def hf_tokenizer(name_or_path, correct_pad_token=True, correct_gemma2=True, **kwargs):
+def hf_tokenizer(name_or_path, correct_pad_token=True, correct_gemma2=True, custom_chat_template=None, **kwargs):
     """Create a huggingface pretrained tokenizer which correctness handles eos and pad tokens.
 
     Args:
@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ def hf_tokenizer(name_or_path, correct_pad_token=True, correct_gemma2=True, **kw
         name (str): The name of the tokenizer.
         correct_pad_token (bool): Whether to correct the pad token id.
         correct_gemma2 (bool): Whether to correct the gemma2 tokenizer.
-
+        custom_chat_template (str | None): The chat template that overrides the default template. 
     Returns:
 
         transformers.PreTrainedTokenizer: The pretrained tokenizer.
@@ -58,6 +58,11 @@ def hf_tokenizer(name_or_path, correct_pad_token=True, correct_gemma2=True, **kw
     tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained(name_or_path, **kwargs)
     if correct_pad_token:
         set_pad_token_id(tokenizer)
+    
+    # Chat template can be overridden, or set if the tokenizer does not have a chat template
+    if custom_chat_template is not None:
+        tokenizer.chat_template = custom_chat_template
+
     return tokenizer