diff --git a/dotnet/src/SemanticKernel.Core/Text/TextChunker.cs b/dotnet/src/SemanticKernel.Core/Text/TextChunker.cs
index d8f4a32b4e3c..c51873290f70 100644
--- a/dotnet/src/SemanticKernel.Core/Text/TextChunker.cs
+++ b/dotnet/src/SemanticKernel.Core/Text/TextChunker.cs
@@ -195,15 +195,11 @@ private static List<string> ProcessParagraphs(List<string> paragraphs, int adjus
                 var lastParagraphTokens = lastParagraph.Split(s_spaceChar, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
                 var secondLastParagraphTokens = secondLastParagraph.Split(s_spaceChar, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
 
-                var lastParagraphTokensCount = lastParagraphTokens.Length;
-                var secondLastParagraphTokensCount = secondLastParagraphTokens.Length;
+                var mergedParagraph = $"{string.Join(" ", secondLastParagraphTokens)} {string.Join(" ", lastParagraphTokens)}";
 
-                if (lastParagraphTokensCount + secondLastParagraphTokensCount <= adjustedMaxTokensPerParagraph)
+                if (GetTokenCount(mergedParagraph, tokenCounter) <= adjustedMaxTokensPerParagraph)
                 {
-                    var newSecondLastParagraph = string.Join(" ", secondLastParagraphTokens);
-                    var newLastParagraph = string.Join(" ", lastParagraphTokens);
-
-                    paragraphs[paragraphs.Count - 2] = $"{newSecondLastParagraph} {newLastParagraph}";
+                    paragraphs[paragraphs.Count - 2] = mergedParagraph;
                     paragraphs.RemoveAt(paragraphs.Count - 1);
                 }
             }
diff --git a/dotnet/src/SemanticKernel.UnitTests/Text/TextChunkerTests.cs b/dotnet/src/SemanticKernel.UnitTests/Text/TextChunkerTests.cs
index a31f077eef66..fd53dedf1504 100644
--- a/dotnet/src/SemanticKernel.UnitTests/Text/TextChunkerTests.cs
+++ b/dotnet/src/SemanticKernel.UnitTests/Text/TextChunkerTests.cs
@@ -558,6 +558,17 @@ public void CanSplitTextParagraphsWithCustomTokenCounter()
         Assert.Equal(expected, result);
     }
 
+    [Fact]
+    public void SplitTextParagraphsDoesNotMergeShortLastParagraphPastTokenLimit()
+    {
+        var input = new[] { "123456789", "x" };
+
+        var result = TextChunker.SplitPlainTextParagraphs(input, 10, tokenCounter: text => text.Length);
+
+        Assert.Equal(["123456789", "x"], result);
+        Assert.All(result, paragraph => Assert.True(paragraph.Length <= 10, $"Paragraph exceeded token limit: {paragraph}"));
+    }
+
     [Fact]
     public void CanSplitTextParagraphsWithOverlapAndCustomTokenCounter()
     {