Padel Rules: The Complete Reference (2026 FIP Edition)
Quick Answer: Padel is two against two on an enclosed court 20 m long and 10 m wide. You score it like tennis — 15, 30, 40, game, six games to a set — serve underhand after bouncing the ball, and the ball must hit the floor before it touches any wall. After that bounce, the walls are in play.
Padel takes ten minutes to learn and one argument to understand properly. This page is the long version: every rule that comes up in a normal match, checked line by line against the FIP Rules of Padel in the edition applied from 1 January 2026, and written the way you would actually explain it to somebody on court.
If you want the shorter orientation first, start with the plain-English guide to padel rules and come back here when a specific case bites.
The court, the ball, the racket
The court is a rectangle 10 m wide and 20 m long, measured inside the enclosure, divided by a net. Service lines run across each half 6.95 m from the net, and a center service line splits that area into two boxes. All lines are 5 cm wide. Behind you there is 4 m of wall: 3 m of glass or solid material with 1 m of metal mesh above it. The sides mix wall and mesh in one of two permitted layouts. Full spec sheet, including net heights and the space a club needs around the cage, is in padel court dimensions.
The ball looks like a tennis ball with less to say for itself. The rulebook wants a rubber sphere 6.35 to 6.77 cm across, weighing 56.0 to 59.4 g, bouncing 135 to 145 cm when dropped from 2.54 m onto a hard surface. Above 1,000 m of altitude a lower-bouncing ball is allowed. In practice: buy padel balls, not tennis balls, and replace them when the bounce goes dead rather than when the fluff goes.
The racket is solid and perforated, with no strings. Maximum total length 45.5 cm, maximum width 26 cm, maximum thickness 38 mm, holes 9 to 13 mm through the middle of the face. It must carry a non-elastic wrist cord of up to 35 cm, and wearing it is not optional — under the rulebook, breaking the cord or dropping the racket loses you the point on the spot. Nobody enforces that on a Tuesday, but it is the rule.
Scoring: the ladder, the set, the match
Padel borrowed tennis's scoring whole. First point 15, second 30, third 40, fourth the game, server's score always called first.
A set goes to the first pair to win six games with a two-game margin. At 5-5 you play on to 7-5. At 6-6 you play a tie-break: first to seven points, two clear, plain numbers, ends changed every six points. Matches are the best of three sets.
The rulebook also blesses shorter shapes, which is worth knowing because they are what most club nights actually run: a mini set to four games with the same two-game margin, a tie-break to seven replacing a deciding set, and a super tie-break to ten doing the same job. Agree the shape before the first serve rather than at 5-5. The full walk-through, including how the tie-break serve rotates, is in padel scoring explained.
At 40-40 there are three legal answers
This is the only part of padel scoring that genuinely moves, and the 2026 rulebook lists three valid options rather than one.
| At 40-40 | How it runs | Who plays it |
|---|---|---|
| Advantage | Two points in a row from deuce, as long as that takes | Traditional club and casual play |
| Star Point | Deuce 1, advantage 1, deuce 2, advantage 2, then a single deciding point at deuce 3 | The 2026 professional format: Premier Padel and the CUPRA FIP Tour |
| Golden point | One deciding point at the first deuce | Most amateur leagues and club nights |
In both sudden-death versions the receiving pair chooses which side takes the deciding serve, and having chosen, the receivers may not swap positions. In mixed matches that deciding point is served and received by players of the same sex. The history, the tactics and the case for each is in the golden point.
The serve, rule by rule
Padel's serve is the most-mangled rule in the sport, mostly because it is unfamiliar rather than complicated.
- Stand with one foot behind the service line, between the imaginary extension of the center line and the side wall, and stay there until the ball has been served.
- Bounce the ball on the floor inside the box you are serving from. It may not cross the service line before you strike it.
- Strike it at or below waist height, with at least one foot touching the ground.
- It must land in the service box diagonally opposite, and you get two attempts.
Then the fault list, which is short and specific. Missing the ball entirely is a fault. Landing outside the box is a fault, though lines count as good. Hitting your partner with it is a fault. And the one that surprises everybody: a serve that lands in the right box and then runs into the metal mesh before the second bounce is a fault, while the same serve running into the glass is a perfectly good serve that the receiver plays off the rebound. Clip the net and land in the box and it is a let, replayed. Every case, including foot faults and the myth that you have to toss the ball, is in padel serve rules.
The rally: what the walls actually do
One sentence carries most of padel:
The ball must bounce on the floor of the receiving side before it touches any wall or fence on that side.
Send your shot straight into their glass and you have lost the point. Land it on their floor first and the cage becomes their friend — after that bounce the ball stays in play off the glass, off the mesh, off the corner where wall meets floor, and they can take it as late as they dare, as long as it has not bounced twice.
Your own side has one asymmetry worth memorizing:
- You may hit the ball into your own wall and send it over the net from there. Legal, spectacular, occasionally the only shot left.
- You may not let the ball you have hit touch your own mesh fence or your own floor. That loses the point.
Put another way: the glass works for you on both sides of the net, and the mesh only ever works for you on a ball that has already bounced. If the ball has bounced on your floor and rebounds off your fence, you can still play it — awkwardly, on a bounce nobody can read, which is the whole charm. The precise version, wall by wall, is in what counts as in or out.
Out of the court, and the shot everybody films
Where the club has built the required safety zone — no obstacles within an area at least 3 m wide and 4 m long beside the court, two access points a side — out-of-court play is allowed. You may run through the gap and play the ball back in from the car park.
The limits are exact. If the ball goes out over the back wall after bouncing, the point is over. If it leaves over the side wall or through the door, you have until its second bounce, or until it touches something that is not part of the court, to get it back. On courts without that safety zone, a ball leaving the cage after its bounce simply ends the point.
Two oddities from the same section, both real, both worth knowing when a ball does something ridiculous: if the ball bounces on their side and then jams into a hole in the mesh or comes to rest on the flat top of the wall, the point is yours.
Lets, interference and the ways a point ends
Most rallies end in an obvious way — the ball bounces twice, or hits the net, or leaves the court. The remainder are the ones people argue about.
| Situation | Ruling |
|---|---|
| Ball splits during the rally | Let, replay the point |
| A stray ball or object comes onto the court | Let |
| The ball hits an object lying on the opponents' floor | Point continues; a let if the object moves dangerously |
| You put an opponent off deliberately | Point to them |
| You put an opponent off accidentally | Let, and a loss of point if your pair does it twice |
| Both of you hit the same ball | Point lost, unless one of you struck the ball and the other only struck a racket |
| You touch the net, the posts or the tension cable while the ball is live | Point lost |
| The ball hits you or your clothing after you hit it | Point lost |
| You hit the ball before it has crossed the net | Point lost |
The last one is the amateur classic. You are camped at the net, the ball is arcing toward you, and you take it a fraction early over their side of the net. That is their point, however good the volley looked.
Time, and the bits umpires actually call
Under the rulebook you get 20 seconds between points, 90 seconds when changing ends, and 120 seconds at the end of a set. Ends change after the first, third and every subsequent odd game, and every six points in a tie-break. The warm-up is a 3-minute courtesy rally, not the five minutes older guides describe. An injury buys one 3-minute treatment for each treatable condition, repeatable at the next two changes of ends.
None of that is umpired at your club. It is still the honest answer to "how long should this take", and it is why a well-run set of six games lands near 25 minutes rather than 40. If your group keeps overrunning its booking, the times above are where the minutes went.
Start playing tonight
Four people, one court, 90 minutes, and three decisions made before you arrive: how long each match is, what happens at 40-40, and who is keeping score.
That last one matters more than it sounds. Padel has no umpire, no scoreboard and four players with a stake in the answer, so the score gets called out loud before every serve or it gets disputed later. Run the night on the online padel scoreboard if there is a phone on the bench, and if you would rather there wasn't, put a printed score sheet in the bag before you leave the house. The full plan for exactly four players — warm-up, the three pairings, the tally that produces a winner — is how to run a padel night for 4 friends.
For a second reading of the basics in a different voice, the LTA's padel rules summary is a good short companion to the FIP text. Everything on this page comes from the rulebook itself, which is worth skimming once — it is shorter than you expect, and it settles arguments faster than a group chat.
FAQ
What are the basic rules of padel?
Two pairs, an enclosed court 20 m by 10 m, tennis scoring, an underhand serve bounced on the floor first and hit below waist height into the diagonal box. The ball must bounce on the receiving side's floor before touching any wall on that side; after that bounce the walls and fence are in play. Two floor bounces, or a ball into the net, ends the rally.
How do you score a point in padel?
Points run 15, 30, 40, game, with the server's score called first, and six games with a two-game margin wins a set. At 40-40 your group plays advantage, golden point or the Star Point, all three of which are valid under the 2026 FIP rulebook. Agree which one before the first serve.
Can the ball hit the wall in padel?
Yes, once it has bounced on the floor first. A shot that hits the opponents' wall or fence before touching their floor loses the point, but a ball that bounces and then rebounds off the glass or the mesh is still live and can be returned. You may also play the ball off your own wall to send it back over the net.
Is the padel serve always underhand?
Yes. The rulebook requires you to bounce the ball on the floor and strike it at or below waist level with at least one foot on the ground, so there is no overhead serve in padel at any level. You get two attempts, and lines count as in.
What changed in the padel rules for 2026?
The FIP rulebook applied from 1 January 2026 added the Star Point as a third way to settle 40-40, alongside classic advantage and golden point, and it is the format used on the professional tours for the 2026 season. The rulebook also sets the pre-match warm-up as a 3-minute courtesy rally.