diff --git a/Doc/library/uuid.rst b/Doc/library/uuid.rst
index ea9ea7dc7d9b82..d2ac13fe159d83 100644
--- a/Doc/library/uuid.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/uuid.rst
@@ -75,6 +75,10 @@ which relays any information about the UUID's safety, using this enumeration:
    ``12345678-1234-5678-1234-567812345678`` where the 32 hexadecimal digits
    represent the UUID.
 
+   .. versionchanged:: 3.7
+      *bytes* and *bytes_le* parameters now accept any bytes-like objects of 16
+      bytes, bytearray and memoryview for example, not only :class:`bytes`.
+
 :class:`UUID` instances have these read-only attributes:
 
 .. attribute:: UUID.bytes
diff --git a/Lib/test/test_uuid.py b/Lib/test/test_uuid.py
index 083c2aa8aab54d..e43232a8ecd5c1 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_uuid.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_uuid.py
@@ -220,14 +220,20 @@ def test_exceptions(self):
         badvalue(lambda: self.uuid.UUID('123456781234567812345678z2345678'))
 
         # Badly formed bytes.
-        badvalue(lambda: self.uuid.UUID(bytes='abc'))
-        badvalue(lambda: self.uuid.UUID(bytes='\0'*15))
-        badvalue(lambda: self.uuid.UUID(bytes='\0'*17))
+        badtype(lambda: self.uuid.UUID(bytes='unicode'))
+        badtype(lambda: self.uuid.UUID(bytes='u'*16))
+        badvalue(lambda: self.uuid.UUID(bytes=b'abc'))
+        badvalue(lambda: self.uuid.UUID(bytes=b'\0'*15))
+        badvalue(lambda: self.uuid.UUID(bytes=b'\0'*17))
+        badtype(lambda: self.uuid.UUID(bytes=16))
 
         # Badly formed bytes_le.
-        badvalue(lambda: self.uuid.UUID(bytes_le='abc'))
-        badvalue(lambda: self.uuid.UUID(bytes_le='\0'*15))
-        badvalue(lambda: self.uuid.UUID(bytes_le='\0'*17))
+        badtype(lambda: self.uuid.UUID(bytes_le='unicode'))
+        badtype(lambda: self.uuid.UUID(bytes_le='u'*16))
+        badvalue(lambda: self.uuid.UUID(bytes_le=b'abc'))
+        badvalue(lambda: self.uuid.UUID(bytes_le=b'\0'*15))
+        badvalue(lambda: self.uuid.UUID(bytes_le=b'\0'*17))
+        badtype(lambda: self.uuid.UUID(bytes_le=16))
 
         # Badly formed fields.
         badvalue(lambda: self.uuid.UUID(fields=(1,)))
@@ -476,6 +482,15 @@ def testIssue8621(self):
 
             self.assertNotEqual(parent_value, child_value)
 
+    def test_bytes_like(self):
+        u = self.uuid.uuid4()
+
+        self.assertEqual(self.uuid.UUID(bytes=memoryview(u.bytes)), u)
+        self.assertEqual(self.uuid.UUID(bytes=bytearray(u.bytes)), u)
+
+        self.assertEqual(self.uuid.UUID(bytes_le=memoryview(u.bytes_le)), u)
+        self.assertEqual(self.uuid.UUID(bytes_le=bytearray(u.bytes_le)), u)
+
 
 class TestUUIDWithoutExtModule(BaseTestUUID, unittest.TestCase):
     uuid = py_uuid
diff --git a/Lib/uuid.py b/Lib/uuid.py
index 3123ff88a16b0b..951f27ef632ec5 100644
--- a/Lib/uuid.py
+++ b/Lib/uuid.py
@@ -160,15 +160,18 @@ def __init__(self, hex=None, bytes=None, bytes_le=None, fields=None,
                 raise ValueError('badly formed hexadecimal UUID string')
             int = int_(hex, 16)
         if bytes_le is not None:
+            if not isinstance(bytes_le, (bytes_, bytearray, int_)):
+                bytes_le = bytes_(bytes_le)
             if len(bytes_le) != 16:
                 raise ValueError('bytes_le is not a 16-char string')
             bytes = (bytes_le[4-1::-1] + bytes_le[6-1:4-1:-1] +
                      bytes_le[8-1:6-1:-1] + bytes_le[8:])
         if bytes is not None:
+            int = int_.from_bytes(bytes, byteorder='big')
+            # test length after the conversion to raise a TypeError exception
+            # if 'bytes' type is str even if 'bytes' length is not 16
             if len(bytes) != 16:
                 raise ValueError('bytes is not a 16-char string')
-            assert isinstance(bytes, bytes_), repr(bytes)
-            int = int_.from_bytes(bytes, byteorder='big')
         if fields is not None:
             if len(fields) != 6:
                 raise ValueError('fields is not a 6-tuple')
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2017-09-28-16-21-13.bpo-29729.skDkJA.rst b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2017-09-28-16-21-13.bpo-29729.skDkJA.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000000..502b04a7f57149
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2017-09-28-16-21-13.bpo-29729.skDkJA.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+uuid.UUID now accepts bytes-like object of 16 bytes. The constructor doesn't
+require the 'bytes' and 'bytes_le' arguments to be an instance of bytes: accept
+bytes-like types, bytearray and memoryview for example.