diff --git a/src/main/java/com/hubspot/jinjava/tree/parse/Token.java b/src/main/java/com/hubspot/jinjava/tree/parse/Token.java
index ee526f5bb..d7071cc99 100644
--- a/src/main/java/com/hubspot/jinjava/tree/parse/Token.java
+++ b/src/main/java/com/hubspot/jinjava/tree/parse/Token.java
@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ public Token(
     this.image = image;
     this.lineNumber = lineNumber;
     this.startPosition = startPosition;
-    this.symbols = symbols;
+    this.symbols = symbols != null ? symbols : new DefaultTokenScannerSymbols();
     this.whitespaceControlParser = whitespaceControlParser;
     parse();
   }
diff --git a/src/test/java/com/hubspot/jinjava/tree/parse/TagTokenTest.java b/src/test/java/com/hubspot/jinjava/tree/parse/TagTokenTest.java
index 0eba63d63..bc2b56d6a 100644
--- a/src/test/java/com/hubspot/jinjava/tree/parse/TagTokenTest.java
+++ b/src/test/java/com/hubspot/jinjava/tree/parse/TagTokenTest.java
@@ -30,6 +30,13 @@ public void tagNameIsAllJavaIdentifiers() {
     assertThat(t.getHelpers()).isEqualTo("\"top_left\"");
   }
 
+  @Test
+  public void itDefaultsNullSymbolsToDefaultTokenScannerSymbols() {
+    TagToken t = new TagToken("{% foo %}", 1, 2, null);
+    assertThat(t.getSymbols()).isInstanceOf(DefaultTokenScannerSymbols.class);
+    assertThat(t.getTagName()).isEqualTo("foo");
+  }
+
   @Test
   public void itThrowsParseErrorWhenMalformed() {
     try {