diff --git a/src/TargetPhp/PhpBinaryPath.php b/src/TargetPhp/PhpBinaryPath.php
index 9d364c0..cadb8b2 100644
--- a/src/TargetPhp/PhpBinaryPath.php
+++ b/src/TargetPhp/PhpBinaryPath.php
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@
 
 namespace Php\Pie\TargetPhp;
 
+use Composer\Semver\VersionParser;
 use Symfony\Component\Process\PhpExecutableFinder;
 use Symfony\Component\Process\Process;
 use Webmozart\Assert\Assert;
@@ -20,11 +21,18 @@ private function __construct(readonly string $phpBinaryPath)
 
     public function version(): string
     {
-        $phpVersion = trim((new Process([$this->phpBinaryPath, '-r', 'echo phpversion();']))
+        $phpVersion = trim((new Process([
+            $this->phpBinaryPath,
+            '-r',
+            'echo PHP_MAJOR_VERSION . "." . PHP_MINOR_VERSION . "." . PHP_RELEASE_VERSION;',
+        ]))
             ->mustRun()
             ->getOutput());
         Assert::stringNotEmpty($phpVersion, 'Could not determine PHP version');
 
+        // normalizing the version will throw an exception if it is not a valid version
+        (new VersionParser())->normalize($phpVersion);
+
         return $phpVersion;
     }
 
diff --git a/test/unit/TargetPhp/PhpBinaryPathTest.php b/test/unit/TargetPhp/PhpBinaryPathTest.php
index 05c7551..9b19793 100644
--- a/test/unit/TargetPhp/PhpBinaryPathTest.php
+++ b/test/unit/TargetPhp/PhpBinaryPathTest.php
@@ -15,6 +15,9 @@ final class PhpBinaryPathTest extends TestCase
 {
     public function testVersionFromCurrentProcess(): void
     {
-        self::assertSame(PHP_VERSION, PhpBinaryPath::fromCurrentProcess()->version());
+        self::assertSame(
+            sprintf("%s.%s.%s", PHP_MAJOR_VERSION, PHP_MINOR_VERSION, PHP_RELEASE_VERSION),
+            PhpBinaryPath::fromCurrentProcess()->version()
+        );
     }
 }