We present a new concept for fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) based on time-resolved Hadamard imaging (HI). HI allows image acquisition by use of one single-point detector without requiring a moving scanning stage. Moreover, it reduces the influence of detector noise compared with raster scanning. By use of Monte Carlo simulations it could be confirmed that Hadamard transformation may decrease the error in lifetime estimation and in general in fluorescence parameter estimation when the signal-to-noise ratio is low and detector dark noise is high. This concept may find applications whenever the performance of FLIM or similar methods is limited by high dark-count rates and when the use of a single-point detector is preferable. (c) 2005 Optical Society of America.