A piston for an internal combustion engine has a piston head and a piston skirt delimited by a lower skirt edge. The piston skirt has a working surface assigned to its major thrust side (DS) and a working surface assigned to its minor thrust side (GDS), and a zone is assigned to each of the two working surfaces, which zone proceeds from the lower skirt edge and is exposed to a maximal stress during operation of the internal combustion engine. The zone of the working surface assigned to the major thrust side (DS) and/or the zone of the working surface assigned to the minor thrust (GDS) side is provided with a coating that has grooves that run vertically.