In this paper, a new discretization method to obtain the sampled data representation of the nonlinear state delay control system is proposed. This discretization method is based on the matrix exponential computation. The mathematical structure of the new discretization scheme is explored. Then it is applied to obtain the discrete form of the nonlinear state delay continuous systems. The resulting time discretization method provides a finite dimensional representation for nonlinear control systems with state delay, thereby enabling the application of existing controller design techniques to such systems. The performance of the proposed discretization procedure is evaluated by means of the simulation study. In the simulation various sampling rates and time delay values are considered. The results demonstrate that the proposed discretization scheme can assure the system’s accuracy requirements.