The invention relates to a base plate (20) for a hand-held jig-saw, which comprises a passage (15) for a saw blade (13) that can be driven with a reciprocating displacement. To prevent defective linear cuts and oblique lateral cuts, in particular in thick materials, caused by the lateral deflection of the saw blade tip during the sawing operation, a guide device (21) comprising guide elements (22, 23) that project into the passage (15) is integrated into the base plate (20). An improved sawing result can be achieved with hand-held jig-saws without a guide device for laterally guiding the saw blade (13) by simply replacing their base plates with the inventive novel base plate (20).