diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index b480fd33..c45383b9 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -7,6 +7,11 @@
   to cryptosuites) to further reduce their encoded size (instead of using
   the global table). This approach is incompatible with previous encodings
   that used the global table.
+- **BREAKING**: Encode all URIs using the vocab term codec. This allows
+  arbitrary URIs to be encoded with the same small integers as other terms.
+  The mapping in a context needs to use a redundant form: `{"URI":"URI"}`. This
+  technique assume a use case where the CBOR-LD size has high priority over
+  context size.
 
 ## 6.0.3 - 2023-12-19
 
diff --git a/lib/codecs/UriDecoder.js b/lib/codecs/UriDecoder.js
index c7b5a1b5..1e134c55 100644
--- a/lib/codecs/UriDecoder.js
+++ b/lib/codecs/UriDecoder.js
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ import {Base58DidUrlDecoder} from './Base58DidUrlDecoder.js';
 import {CborldDecoder} from './CborldDecoder.js';
 import {HttpUrlDecoder} from './HttpUrlDecoder.js';
 import {UuidUrnDecoder} from './UuidUrnDecoder.js';
+import {VocabTermDecoder} from './VocabTermDecoder.js';
 
 const SCHEME_ID_TO_DECODER = new Map([
   [1, HttpUrlDecoder],
@@ -15,8 +16,11 @@ const SCHEME_ID_TO_DECODER = new Map([
 ]);
 
 export class UriDecoder extends CborldDecoder {
-  static createDecoder({value} = {}) {
+  static createDecoder({value, transformer} = {}) {
     if(!(Array.isArray(value) || value.length > 1)) {
+      if(transformer.idToTerm.has(value)) {
+        return VocabTermDecoder.createDecoder({value, transformer});
+      }
       return false;
     }
 
diff --git a/lib/codecs/UriEncoder.js b/lib/codecs/UriEncoder.js
index a79d18e8..086ba61a 100644
--- a/lib/codecs/UriEncoder.js
+++ b/lib/codecs/UriEncoder.js
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ import {Base58DidUrlEncoder} from './Base58DidUrlEncoder.js';
 import {CborldEncoder} from './CborldEncoder.js';
 import {HttpUrlEncoder} from './HttpUrlEncoder.js';
 import {UuidUrnEncoder} from './UuidUrnEncoder.js';
+import {VocabTermEncoder} from './VocabTermEncoder.js';
 
 // an encoded URL is an array with the first element being an integer that
 // signals which encoder was used:
@@ -23,11 +24,19 @@ const SCHEME_TO_ENCODER = new Map([
 ]);
 
 export class UriEncoder extends CborldEncoder {
-  static createEncoder({value} = {}) {
+  static createEncoder({value, transformer} = {}) {
     if(typeof value !== 'string') {
       return false;
     }
 
+    const {appContextMap} = transformer;
+
+    // check vocab term map
+    if(transformer.termToId.has(value)) {
+      return VocabTermEncoder.createEncoder({value, transformer});
+    }
+
+    // check URI prefix codecs
     // get full colon-delimited prefix
     let scheme;
     try {