A heat exchanger, in particular an exhaust gas heat exchanger for motor vehicles, has a bundle of tubes through which hot gas flows, a pair of header plates and a housing jacket, which holds the bundle of tubes and the header plates and through which a liquid cooling medium flows. The header plates have openings (8) for receiving tube ends (3a) which are welded to the header plates (2), which are in turn welded to the housing jacket. The header plates (2, 7) are constructed from a plurality of layers of metal sheets which are layered one above another and are fixedly connected together.