diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/506-docker_container-kill_signal.yml b/changelogs/fragments/506-docker_container-kill_signal.yml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..22c30f8d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/506-docker_container-kill_signal.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+bugfixes:
+  - "docker_container - the ``kill_signal`` option erroneously did not accept strings anymore since 3.0.0 (https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.docker/issues/505, https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.docker/pull/506)."
diff --git a/plugins/module_utils/module_container/docker_api.py b/plugins/module_utils/module_container/docker_api.py
index a115292d..490aecd1 100644
--- a/plugins/module_utils/module_container/docker_api.py
+++ b/plugins/module_utils/module_container/docker_api.py
@@ -302,7 +302,7 @@ class DockerAPIEngineDriver(EngineDriver):
     def kill_container(self, client, container_id, kill_signal=None):
         params = {}
         if kill_signal is not None:
-            params['signal'] = int(kill_signal)
+            params['signal'] = kill_signal
         client.post_call('/containers/{0}/kill', container_id, params=params)
 
     def stop_container(self, client, container_id, timeout=None):