Abstract: The invention relates to a short-arc welding method and apparatus. According to the method, an electrically periodically changing arc, which is short-circuited periodically by a molten droplet (22) from the welding wire (21), is formed between the welding wire (21) and the base material (20), in which case each welding cycle is formed of a short-circuit stage (14) and an arc stage (15), whereby both the short-circuit (12, 14) and the arc (15) stages includes both a high-current pulse (5, 10) and lower-current periods (2, 7, 12, 16). According to the invention, at the end part of each short-circuit stage (14) a falling current shape (6, 7) is formed.