diff --git a/docs/howtos/cloud_service.rst b/docs/howtos/cloud_service.rst
index a244232ca7..11bce3f7f8 100644
--- a/docs/howtos/cloud_service.rst
+++ b/docs/howtos/cloud_service.rst
@@ -59,13 +59,11 @@ experiment <https://quantum.ibm.com/experiments/9640736e-d797-4321-b063-d503f8e9
     service = ExperimentData.get_service_from_backend(backend)
     load_expdata = ExperimentData.load("9640736e-d797-4321-b063-d503f8e98571", service)
 
-To display the figure, which is serialized into a string, we need the
-``SVG`` library:
+Now we can display the figure from the loaded experiment data:
 
 .. jupyter-input::
 
-    from IPython.display import SVG
-    SVG(load_expdata.figure(0).figure)
+    load_expdata.figure(0)
 
 .. image:: ./experiment_cloud_service/t1_loaded.png
 
diff --git a/qiskit_experiments/framework/experiment_data.py b/qiskit_experiments/framework/experiment_data.py
index c42f610ad4..9fea0818cd 100644
--- a/qiskit_experiments/framework/experiment_data.py
+++ b/qiskit_experiments/framework/experiment_data.py
@@ -67,6 +67,7 @@
     ExperimentDataSaveFailed,
 )
 
+
 if TYPE_CHECKING:
     # There is a cyclical dependency here, but the name needs to exist for
     # Sphinx on Python 3.9+ to link type hints correctly.  The gating on
@@ -192,7 +193,7 @@ def _repr_svg_(self):
         if isinstance(self.figure, str):
             return self.figure
         if isinstance(self.figure, bytes):
-            return str(self.figure)
+            return self.figure.decode("utf-8")
         return None
 
 
diff --git a/releasenotes/notes/figure_return_SVG-4ad72fc8a3bee3cb.yaml b/releasenotes/notes/figure_return_SVG-4ad72fc8a3bee3cb.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..bd1bf8104f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/releasenotes/notes/figure_return_SVG-4ad72fc8a3bee3cb.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+---
+fixes:
+  - |
+    Figures loaded from the experiment service are now rendered correctly in Jupyter Notebook.