diff --git a/build.xml b/build.xml
index 9eab9f70d..d53a8af7a 100644
--- a/build.xml
+++ b/build.xml
@@ -123,6 +123,12 @@
            destdir="target/checkstyle"
            deprecation="on" debug="on"
            classpathref="build.classpath" />
+
+    <propertyfile file="target/checkstyle/checkstylecompilation.properties">
+       <entry key="checkstyle.compile.version" value="${version}"/>
+       <entry key="checkstyle.compile.timestamp" type="date" value="now" pattern="E MMMM dd yyyy, HH:mm z"/>
+    </propertyfile>
+
     <copy todir="target/checkstyle">
       <fileset dir="src/checkstyle" includes="**/*.properties"/>
       <fileset dir="src/checkstyle" includes="**/*.xml"/>
@@ -139,6 +145,7 @@
       <fileset dir="src/checkstyle" includes="**/messages.properties"/>
       <mapper type="glob" from="*messages.properties" to="*messages_en.properties"/>
     </copy>
+
   </target>
 
   <target name="compile.testinputs" description="Compile test inputs">
diff --git a/docs/releasenotes.html b/docs/releasenotes.html
index 7d3896d25..6a049cd8d 100644
--- a/docs/releasenotes.html
+++ b/docs/releasenotes.html
@@ -90,6 +90,9 @@
           <li class="body">Patch from Simon Kitching to allow more
           configuration control over the JavadocMethodCheck.</li>
 
+          <li class="body">Checkstyle ant task outputs version info
+          in verbose and debug mode (request 550483).</li>
+
         </ul>
 
       <p class="body">
diff --git a/src/checkstyle/com/puppycrawl/tools/checkstyle/CheckStyleTask.java b/src/checkstyle/com/puppycrawl/tools/checkstyle/CheckStyleTask.java
index 3d6704dbf..504bdf3be 100644
--- a/src/checkstyle/com/puppycrawl/tools/checkstyle/CheckStyleTask.java
+++ b/src/checkstyle/com/puppycrawl/tools/checkstyle/CheckStyleTask.java
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ import java.util.Iterator;
 import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Properties;
 import java.util.Hashtable;
+import java.util.ResourceBundle;
 import java.net.URL;
 
 import com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.api.Configuration;
@@ -215,6 +216,16 @@ public class CheckStyleTask
     public void execute()
         throws BuildException
     {
+        // output version info in debug mode
+        final ResourceBundle compilationProperties =
+            ResourceBundle.getBundle("checkstylecompilation");
+        final String version =
+            compilationProperties.getString("checkstyle.compile.version");
+        final String compileTimestamp =
+            compilationProperties.getString("checkstyle.compile.timestamp");
+        log("checkstyle version " + version, Project.MSG_VERBOSE);
+        log("compiled on " + compileTimestamp, Project.MSG_VERBOSE);
+
         // Check for no arguments
         if ((mFileName == null) && (mFileSets.size() == 0)) {
             throw new BuildException(