Padel Serve Rules: Faults, Lets and the Underarm Rule

Quick Answer: Serve from behind the service line, bounce the ball on the floor once, and strike it at or below waist height with a foot down. It must land in the diagonal service box, and you get two attempts. A serve that then hits the glass is good; one that hits the mesh is a fault.

Nobody arrives at padel knowing how to serve, and the rules are the reason: not one element of it matches tennis. What follows is the whole serve, rule by rule, from the FIP Rules of Padel in the edition applied from 1 January 2026 — part of the padel rules guide.

The serve in five steps

1. Stand behind the service line, with at least one foot behind it, between the imaginary extension of the center service line and the side wall. Stay there until the ball has been served.
2. Bounce the ball on the floor, inside the box you are serving from. Once, on the ground — this is not a toss.
3. Strike it at or below waist height, with at least one foot in contact with the ground.
4. Send it diagonally over the net into the receiver's service box. It must bounce inside the lines of that box; lines count as good.
5. Two attempts. Miss both and you lose the point.

That is the complete serve. Everything below is what happens when one of those five goes wrong.

Where your feet have to be

The rulebook is fussier about feet than about anything else in the serve, and this is where amateur players get away with the most.

• At least one foot behind the service line, in the correct half, and it stays there until the ball has been served.
• Until you have hit the ball, your feet may not touch the service line, the imaginary line extending the center service line, or your own reception box.
• At least one foot must be in contact with the ground at the moment of contact.

Read that last one twice, because it kills the jump serve. There is no leaving the ground in a padel serve, no matter how badly your tennis instincts want to. It also rules out the walking serve — stepping in as you bounce so that the contact happens a meter inside the line.

The bounce, and the myth about the toss

You must bounce the ball on the ground and hit it after the bounce. And the bounce has to stay behind the line: the rulebook says the ball may not cross the service line or the imaginary center line before it is struck.

So the two most common amateur serves are both illegal. Tossing the ball from the hand and hitting it out of the air is not a padel serve. Bouncing the ball forward so it crosses the line, then chasing it and striking from inside the court, is not either. One bounce, behind the line, struck low.

There is no requirement about your swing path or your racket head. Unlike pickleball, padel does not ask for an upward arc — only that the ball is at or below waist height when you hit it. A flat, slicing action that keeps the ball low is completely legal and is what most decent players use.

Where the serve has to land, and what it may do next

The serve goes diagonally into the box opposite. First serve of a game from the right, then the boxes alternate as points are won, exactly as in tennis.

What happens after the bounce is where padel diverges:

• Lands in the box, then runs into the back glass: a good serve. The receiver plays it off the rebound, and doing that well is most of learning to receive.
• Lands in the box, then touches the metal mesh before its second bounce: a fault, however good the bounce was.
• Clips the net and lands in the box: a let, replayed — unless it then touches the mesh before the second bounce, which makes it a fault rather than a let.
• Lands in the box and goes straight out through the gate on a court with no safety zone: a fault.

Glass forgives, mesh does not. The same distinction runs through the whole sport, and the rally version of it is in can the ball hit the fence.

The fault list, in full

Two consecutive faults lose the point. And a detail worth knowing: once you have made contact with the ball, or made an intentional attempt to hit it, that counts as a serve — so you cannot catch a bad bounce and start again.

Lets and replays

A let is a replay, not a fault, and there are only a few of them on the serve.

• Net serve. The ball touches the net or the posts and still lands in the correct box: replay. The same applies if, after touching the net or posts, it hits a player or something they are carrying.
• Receiver not ready. If you serve before the receiver is ready, the point is replayed. But the receiver cannot claim not-ready after attempting a return, and if it is clear they were not ready, a fault cannot be called against you.
• First serve versus second. A let on the first serve means the whole point is replayed, and you get both serves back. A let or net on the second serve means only that second serve is repeated.

During the rally, other let situations exist — a ball that splits, an object coming onto court — and they are covered in what counts as in or out.

What the receiver must do

Two rules on the other side of the net that change how you serve.

The receiver has to let the serve bounce in their box and hit it before its second bounce. They cannot take it out of the air. If the ball hits a receiving player or their racket before it has bounced, the point goes to the server — so a serve fired at the receiver's body is legal and free.

The receiving pair also fixes its order at the start of each set: whoever receives first keeps receiving the first serve of every game for that set, and the two of them alternate within the game. Nobody may swap mid-set to hide a weaker return.

Serving order, and who serves when

Before each set, your pair decides which of you serves first, and that order holds until the next set. Across the four players the sequence rotates, so each pair alternates games and you serve roughly every fourth game.

The tie-break is different: the player whose turn it is serves one point from the right, then each player serves two consecutive points in the same order, and ends change every six points. The full mechanics, plus what happens at 40-40, are in padel scoring explained.

Six serves your group is probably getting wrong

1. The toss serve. Ball out of the hand, hit from the air. Illegal — bounce it.
2. The walking serve. Bouncing forward, crossing the line, striking from inside the court.
3. The jump serve. Both feet off the ground at contact. One foot must be down.
4. The chest-high smash serve. Waist height means waist height, not "roughly where my arm feels natural".
5. The rushed serve. Serving before the receiver has turned round. It is a replay, and the point you just won gets given back.
6. The mesh serve claimed as a let. Netted, in the box, then into the mesh: fault, not a let.

None of these will get you disqualified on a Tuesday. All of them will get you a very tedious conversation in a club league, and five of the six are also making your serve worse — a legal padel serve is a placement shot, and every one of the violations above is an attempt to make it a power shot.

Agree the serve rules with your group once, before the first point of the night, and put the score somewhere neutral. The online padel scoreboard tracks serve and side prompts for you as the match goes on, and the whole rulebook in plain words is the complete padel rules reference. For a second, shorter take on the basics, the LTA's padel rules page covers the serve in a paragraph.

FAQ

Do you have to serve underarm in padel?

Yes. The rulebook requires the ball to be at or below waist height at the moment you hit it, and you must bounce it on the floor first, so there is no overhead serve in padel at any level. There is no rule about your swing path — only about the height of the ball and the fact that a foot must stay on the ground.

Do you get two serves in padel?

Yes. If your first serve is not valid you get a second, exactly as in tennis, and two consecutive faults lose the point. A let on the first serve gives you both serves back; a let on the second gives you only that second serve again.

Do you have to bounce the ball when serving in padel?

Yes, and the bounce must happen on the floor inside the box you are serving from, behind the service line. The ball may not cross the service line before you strike it, which makes both the tossed serve and the "bounce it forward and step in" serve illegal.

Can a padel serve hit the glass?

Yes. A serve that lands in the correct service box and then carries into the back glass is a perfectly good serve, and the receiver plays it off the rebound. The same serve running into the metal mesh before its second bounce is a fault, and a netted serve that lands in the box but then touches the mesh is a fault rather than a let.

Can you jump when serving in padel?

No. At least one foot must be in contact with the ground at the moment you strike the ball, so a jump serve is a fault. Your feet also may not touch the service line, the imaginary extension of the center line, or your own reception box before you have hit the ball.

What changed about the padel serve in 2026?

The serve rules on this page are those of the edition applied from 1 January 2026. The change that made news in that edition was at 40-40 — the introduction of the Star Point as a third way to settle deuce — rather than anything in the serve, which still runs on the bounce, the waist and the diagonal box.