A method is for manufacturing a stiff, multilayered card body for a portable data carrier, has steps including: making available a layer of an opaque plastic, making available a carbon fiber layer of carbon fiber fabric, impregnating the carbon fiber layer with epoxy resin, fusing the layers to form a half-product, printing the upper side of the carbon fiber layer of the half-product with a graphic pattern in a screen printing process or an offset printing process, laminating a plastic layer onto the printed upper side, and detaching the card body from the half product by means of a separating tool guided relative to the half-product along a path describing the edge contour of the card body.