diff --git a/distributed/shuffle/_core.py b/distributed/shuffle/_core.py
index c8ae80a75e..4eaea179df 100644
--- a/distributed/shuffle/_core.py
+++ b/distributed/shuffle/_core.py
@@ -526,6 +526,12 @@ def handle_unpack_errors(id: ShuffleId) -> Iterator[None]:
         raise RuntimeError(f"P2P shuffling {id} failed during unpack phase") from e
 
 
+def _handle_datetime(buf: Any) -> Any:
+    if hasattr(buf, "dtype") and buf.dtype.kind in "Mm":
+        return buf.view("u8")
+    return buf
+
+
 def _mean_shard_size(shards: Iterable) -> int:
     """Return estimated mean size in bytes of each shard"""
     size = 0
@@ -534,6 +540,7 @@ def _mean_shard_size(shards: Iterable) -> int:
         if not isinstance(shard, int):
             # This also asserts that shard is a Buffer and that we didn't forget
             # a container or metadata type above
+            shard = _handle_datetime(shard)
             size += memoryview(shard).nbytes
             count += 1
             if count == 10:
diff --git a/distributed/shuffle/tests/test_rechunk.py b/distributed/shuffle/tests/test_rechunk.py
index bf55b45457..f2cd8564cc 100644
--- a/distributed/shuffle/tests/test_rechunk.py
+++ b/distributed/shuffle/tests/test_rechunk.py
@@ -1524,3 +1524,15 @@ def transition(self, key, start, finish, *args, stimulus_id, **kwargs):
     min_count = min(counts.values())
     max_count = max(counts.values())
     assert min_count >= max_count, counts
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("method", ["tasks", "p2p"])
+@gen_cluster(client=True)
+async def test_rechunk_datetime(c, s, *ws, method):
+    pd = pytest.importorskip("pandas")
+
+    x = pd.date_range("2005-01-01", "2005-01-10").to_numpy(dtype="datetime64[ns]")
+    dx = da.from_array(x, chunks=10)
+    result = dx.rechunk(2, method=method)
+    result = await c.compute(result)
+    np.testing.assert_array_equal(x, result)