A first communication device encodes, according to a non-rate-matching coding scheme, a set information bits to generate a set of coded bits, generates a first physical layer (PHY) data unit to include at least some of the coded bits, and transmits the first PHY data unit in an initial hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) transmission to a second communication device. Subsequently, in response to determining that the second communication device was not able to properly decode the set of coded bits based on the initial HARQ transmission, the first communication device selects a subset of the set of coded bits, the subset including some, but not all, coded bits that were included in the initial HARQ transmission, generates a second PHY data unit to include the subset of coded bits, and transmits the second PHY data unit in a HARQ retransmission to the second communication device.