diff --git a/nemo_skills/inference/model/utils.py b/nemo_skills/inference/model/utils.py
index 27bf917e74..e4e19dc437 100644
--- a/nemo_skills/inference/model/utils.py
+++ b/nemo_skills/inference/model/utils.py
@@ -95,7 +95,11 @@ def encode(self, prompt: str | list[dict], tools=None) -> list[int]:
         if isinstance(prompt, str):
             return self.tokenizer.encode(prompt)
         elif isinstance(prompt, list):
-            return self.tokenizer.apply_chat_template(prompt, add_generation_prompt=True, tools=tools)
+            result = self.tokenizer.apply_chat_template(prompt, add_generation_prompt=True, tools=tools)
+            # Handle newer HF tokenizer versions that return a BatchEncoding instead of a list
+            if not isinstance(result, list):
+                result = result["input_ids"]
+            return result
 
     def decode(self, tokens: list[int]) -> str:
         """Decode a list of tokens using the tokenizer."""
diff --git a/nemo_skills/inference/prover.py b/nemo_skills/inference/prover.py
index 8faebd63cd..6371b5df72 100644
--- a/nemo_skills/inference/prover.py
+++ b/nemo_skills/inference/prover.py
@@ -283,6 +283,9 @@ async def _single_data_point_generate(self, data_point, data):
             prefix_tokens = self.hf_tokenizer.apply_chat_template(
                 prepared_conversation, tokenize=True, add_generation_prompt=True
             )
+            # Handle newer HF tokenizer versions that return a BatchEncoding instead of a list
+            if not isinstance(prefix_tokens, list):
+                prefix_tokens = prefix_tokens["input_ids"]
             num_tokens_prefix = len(prefix_tokens)
             prefix = self.hf_tokenizer.apply_chat_template(
                 prepared_conversation, tokenize=False, add_generation_prompt=True
diff --git a/nemo_skills/prompt/utils.py b/nemo_skills/prompt/utils.py
index 332b051c73..e258c9c19b 100644
--- a/nemo_skills/prompt/utils.py
+++ b/nemo_skills/prompt/utils.py
@@ -395,9 +395,15 @@ def message_to_dict(orig_message: Any) -> Dict[str, Any]:
             message if isinstance(message, dict) else message_to_dict(copy.deepcopy(message)) for message in messages
         ]
         try:
-            return len(tokenizer.apply_chat_template(messages, tokenize=True, add_generation_prompt=True, tools=tools))
+            result = tokenizer.apply_chat_template(messages, tokenize=True, add_generation_prompt=True, tools=tools)
+            # Handle newer HF tokenizer versions that return a BatchEncoding instead of a list
+            if not isinstance(result, list):
+                result = result["input_ids"]
+            return len(result)
+
         except Exception as e:
             raise ValueError(f"Invalid chat message format: {e}")
+
     else:
         raise ValueError("messages must be a string or a list of dictionaries")
 
diff --git a/tests/test_prompts.py b/tests/test_prompts.py
index a63a7bfaf3..67c0eba887 100644
--- a/tests/test_prompts.py
+++ b/tests/test_prompts.py
@@ -13,7 +13,35 @@
 # limitations under the License.
 
 
-from nemo_skills.prompt.utils import get_prompt
+from transformers import AutoTokenizer
+
+from nemo_skills.prompt.utils import get_prompt, get_token_count
+
+
+def test_get_token_count():
+    tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained("nvidia/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Nano-30B-A3B-BF16", trust_remote_code=True)
+    messages = [{"role": "user", "content": "hello"}]
+
+    tools = [
+        {
+            "type": "function",
+            "function": {
+                "name": "get_weather",
+                "description": "Get the weather",
+                "parameters": {
+                    "type": "object",
+                    "properties": {"location": {"type": "string"}},
+                    "required": ["location"],
+                },
+            },
+        }
+    ]
+
+    assert get_token_count(tokenizer, "hello") == 1
+    assert get_token_count(tokenizer, messages) == 17
+    assert get_token_count(tokenizer, messages, tools=tools) == 266
+    assert get_token_count(None, "hello") is None
+    assert get_token_count(tokenizer, None) is None
 
 
 def test_generic_math_problem_augmentation_prompt():