A piston for an internal combustion engine has a lower piston part and an upper piston part that are connected with one another by friction welding and form an outer circumferential cooling channel. The upper piston part has a circumferential ring belt provided with ring grooves, the inner wall of which delimits the circumferential outer cooling channel. An outer circumferential friction-weld seam is provided below the ring belt, the width of which seam is less than or equal to the wall thickness between the groove root of the ring grooves and the inner wall of the ring belt.