This paper addresses the problem of sampled-data control in T-S fuzzy systems with time delays. Initially, a negative-definite criterion is developed for the matrix containing membership functions with the help of the idea of a switching mechanism. Building upon this criterion, a membership-function-based looped Lyapunov functional is introduced. Furthermore, a sampling-time-dependent looped Lyapunov functional is constructed, incorporating crucial information about the sampling instance. Notably, this functional matrix is not constrained to satisfy positive-definiteness, and it varies with each sampling point. By utilizing the enhanced looped Lyapunov functional, less conservative stability conditions and a new controller criterion for the T-S fuzzy system with time delays are derived. This demonstrates that our proposed stability conditions allow for a larger sampling interval compared to existing work. Finally, the proposed method’s effectiveness is demonstrated through the validation of two simulation examples.