diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 14896de7..68ad34f0 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -90,6 +90,7 @@ Ref: https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/
 
 ### Bug Fixes
 
+* (eip712) [#1543](https://github.com/evmos/ethermint/pull/1543) Improve error handling for EIP-712 encoding config initialization.
 * (app) [#1505](https://github.com/evmos/ethermint/pull/1505) Setup gRPC node service with the application.
 * (server) [#1497](https://github.com/evmos/ethermint/pull/1497) Fix telemetry server setup for observability
 * (rpc) [#1442](https://github.com/evmos/ethermint/pull/1442) Fix decoding of `finalized` block number.
diff --git a/app/app.go b/app/app.go
index 2e0e265c..e2fc73ca 100644
--- a/app/app.go
+++ b/app/app.go
@@ -104,6 +104,7 @@ import (
 	_ "github.com/evmos/ethermint/client/docs/statik"
 
 	"github.com/evmos/ethermint/app/ante"
+	"github.com/evmos/ethermint/ethereum/eip712"
 	srvflags "github.com/evmos/ethermint/server/flags"
 	ethermint "github.com/evmos/ethermint/types"
 	"github.com/evmos/ethermint/x/evm"
@@ -252,6 +253,8 @@ func NewEthermintApp(
 	cdc := encodingConfig.Amino
 	interfaceRegistry := encodingConfig.InterfaceRegistry
 
+	eip712.SetEncodingConfig(encodingConfig)
+
 	// NOTE we use custom transaction decoder that supports the sdk.Tx interface instead of sdk.StdTx
 	bApp := baseapp.NewBaseApp(
 		appName,
diff --git a/ethereum/eip712/encoding.go b/ethereum/eip712/encoding.go
index f8ff5de4..f07add38 100644
--- a/ethereum/eip712/encoding.go
+++ b/ethereum/eip712/encoding.go
@@ -79,6 +79,11 @@ func isValidEIP712Payload(typedData apitypes.TypedData) bool {
 // decodeAminoSignDoc attempts to decode the provided sign doc (bytes) as an Amino payload
 // and returns a signable EIP-712 TypedData object.
 func decodeAminoSignDoc(signDocBytes []byte) (apitypes.TypedData, error) {
+	// Ensure codecs have been initialized
+	if err := validateCodecInit(); err != nil {
+		return apitypes.TypedData{}, err
+	}
+
 	var aminoDoc legacytx.StdSignDoc
 	if err := aminoCodec.UnmarshalJSON(signDocBytes, &aminoDoc); err != nil {
 		return apitypes.TypedData{}, err
@@ -134,6 +139,11 @@ func decodeAminoSignDoc(signDocBytes []byte) (apitypes.TypedData, error) {
 // decodeProtobufSignDoc attempts to decode the provided sign doc (bytes) as a Protobuf payload
 // and returns a signable EIP-712 TypedData object.
 func decodeProtobufSignDoc(signDocBytes []byte) (apitypes.TypedData, error) {
+	// Ensure codecs have been initialized
+	if err := validateCodecInit(); err != nil {
+		return apitypes.TypedData{}, err
+	}
+
 	signDoc := &txTypes.SignDoc{}
 	if err := signDoc.Unmarshal(signDocBytes); err != nil {
 		return apitypes.TypedData{}, err
@@ -220,6 +230,16 @@ func decodeProtobufSignDoc(signDocBytes []byte) (apitypes.TypedData, error) {
 	return typedData, nil
 }
 
+// validateCodecInit ensures that both Amino and Protobuf encoding codecs have been set on app init,
+// so the module does not panic if either codec is not found.
+func validateCodecInit() error {
+	if aminoCodec == nil || protoCodec == nil {
+		return errors.New("missing codec: codecs have not been properly initialized using SetEncodingConfig")
+	}
+
+	return nil
+}
+
 // validatePayloadMessages ensures that the transaction messages can be represented in an EIP-712
 // encoding by checking that messages exist, are of the same type, and share a single signer.
 func validatePayloadMessages(msgs []sdk.Msg) error {