Disclosed is a method for detecting a closing time of a valve having a coil drive, and a corresponding valve. The method comprises the chronologically limited impressing of an electrical voltage in the exciter coil in order to generate an exciter current by means of said coil, as a result of which the movable armature is attracted by forming an armature stroke, and the valve element lifts off from its valve seat. After the decay of the exciter current to zero, a voltage curve (U(t)) at the exciter coil is sampled and read out over time in the form of value pairs (t(k); U(k)) with, in each case, a time value (t(k)) and a voltage value (U(k)). The detected voltage values and time valves are transformed by the formation of a logarithm, in order to form a transformed function. The transformed function is subsequently derived numerically by forming a derivation function. A transformed time value which corresponds to the closing time of the valve is detected on the basis of the derivation function of a predetermined threshold value S being undershot, and the closing time is calculated on the basis thereof by back-transformation.