Products made of bead foams, like expanded polystyrene (EPS) or expanded polypropylene (EPP) have risen sharply in the recent years and the consumption is continuously growing. Bead foam products made of engineering thermoplastics, such as a polyamide, offer superior (thermo-) mechanical properties compared to existing products such as EPS, EPE and EPP. Total new application fields could be opened up. Equally to other engineering thermoplastics, polyamide (12) shows challenging properties regarding foaming, such as a low melt strength and a narrow processing window. The present work describes the feasibility to produce bead foams from polyamide 12 via foam extrusion with under-water palletization with a bulk density below 70 kg/m3 and an average cell size below 100 µm. The thus obtained beads were successfully molded to a part with a density lower than 100 kg/m3. It is noteworthy, that neither a double melting peak or broad melting peak were necessary for the molding. This finding contradicts current theories on the weldabilty of foamed bead. Finally, mechanical properties of this bead foam are compared to commercially available products.