diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index e9551518f0..8c5c69eef9 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -15,6 +15,8 @@ Authors@R: c(person("Carson", "Sievert", role = c("aut", "cre"),
     email = "marianne.corvellec@igdore.org", comment = c(ORCID = "0000-0002-1994-3581")),
     person("Pedro", "Despouy", role = "aut",
     email = "pedro@plot.ly"),
+    person("Salim", "Brüggemann", role = "ctb",
+    email = "salim-b@pm.me", comment = c(ORCID = "0000-0002-5329-5987")),
     person("Plotly Technologies Inc.", role = "cph"))
 License: MIT + file LICENSE
 Description: Create interactive web graphics from 'ggplot2' graphs and/or a custom interface to the (MIT-licensed) JavaScript library 'plotly.js' inspired by the grammar of graphics.
diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 9f4fe92385..998d7a4c91 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -8,6 +8,8 @@
 
 * All HTTP requests are now retried upon failure (#1656)
 
+* R linebreaks (`\n`) in _factor labels_ are now translated to HTML linebreaks (`<br />`), too. Before, this conversion was only done for colums of type character. ([#1700](https://github.com/ropensci/plotly/pull/1700), @salim-b)
+
 ## BUG FIXES
 
 * `ggplotly()` now handles discrete axes of a `facet_wrap` and `facet_grid` correctly when there is only one category in panels > 1 (#1577 and #1720).
diff --git a/R/utils.R b/R/utils.R
index 93dd1461b5..5161d93491 100644
--- a/R/utils.R
+++ b/R/utils.R
@@ -609,12 +609,14 @@ translate_linebreaks <- function(p) {
     typ <- typeof(a)
     if (typ == "list") {
       # retain the class of list elements 
-      # which important for many things, such as colorbars
+      # which is important for many things, such as colorbars
       a[] <- lapply(a, recurse)
     } else if (typ == "character" && !inherits(a, "JS_EVAL")) {
       attrs <- attributes(a)
       a <- gsub("\n", br(), a, fixed = TRUE)
       attributes(a) <- attrs
+    } else if (is.factor(a)) {
+      levels(a) <- gsub("\n", br(), levels(a), fixed = TRUE)
     }
     a
   }
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-plotly.R b/tests/testthat/test-plotly.R
index 8dd43a405a..9f42656291 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-plotly.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-plotly.R
@@ -317,3 +317,34 @@ test_that("toWebGL() shouldn't complain if it's already webgl", {
     toWebGL()
   expect_silent(plotly_build(p))
 })
+
+test_that("Line breaks are properly translated (R -> HTML)", {
+  # create target labels
+  suffix <- "\n\n(third line)\n(fourth line)"
+  
+  target_labels <- iris$Species %>%
+    unique() %>%
+    paste0(suffix) %>%
+    gsub(pattern = "\n",
+         replacement = br(),
+         x = .,
+         fixed = TRUE)
+  
+  # test factor column
+  d <- iris
+  levels(d$Species) <- paste0(levels(d$Species), suffix)
+  p1 <- d %>% plot_ly(x = ~Sepal.Length,
+                      y = ~Species)
+  
+  expect_equivalent(plotly_build(p1)[["x"]][["layout"]][["yaxis"]][["categoryarray"]],
+                    target_labels)
+  
+  # test character column
+  p2 <- d %>%
+    dplyr::mutate(Species = as.character(Species)) %>%
+    plot_ly(x = ~Sepal.Length,
+            y = ~Species)
+  
+  expect_equivalent(plotly_build(p2)[["x"]][["layout"]][["yaxis"]][["categoryarray"]],
+                    target_labels)
+})