diff --git a/promql/functions.go b/promql/functions.go
index d8b22ddd40..953d1945f7 100644
--- a/promql/functions.go
+++ b/promql/functions.go
@@ -1612,7 +1612,7 @@ func (ev *evaluator) evalLabelReplace(ctx context.Context, args parser.Expressio
 	if err != nil {
 		panic(fmt.Errorf("invalid regular expression in label_replace(): %s", regexStr))
 	}
-	if !model.LabelNameRE.MatchString(dst) {
+	if !model.LabelName(dst).IsValid() {
 		panic(fmt.Errorf("invalid destination label name in label_replace(): %s", dst))
 	}
 
diff --git a/promql/promqltest/testdata/functions.test b/promql/promqltest/testdata/functions.test
index 68cf5a09b4..23aaa1fe59 100644
--- a/promql/promqltest/testdata/functions.test
+++ b/promql/promqltest/testdata/functions.test
@@ -466,7 +466,7 @@ eval instant at 0m label_replace(testmetric, "dst", "", "dst", ".*")
 eval_fail instant at 0m label_replace(testmetric, "dst", "value-$1", "src", "(.*")
 
 # label_replace fails when the destination label name is not a valid Prometheus label name.
-eval_fail instant at 0m label_replace(testmetric, "invalid-label-name", "", "src", "(.*)")
+eval_fail instant at 0m label_replace(testmetric, "\xff", "", "src", "(.*)")
 
 # label_replace fails when there would be duplicated identical output label sets.
 eval_fail instant at 0m label_replace(testmetric, "src", "", "", "")