The rules of padel, in full

By Ruzgar Yesil. Updated 19 September 2026.

Padel is played on an enclosed court, 20 metres long and 10 metres wide, almost always as doubles. The serve is underarm. The walls are in play. Everything else sits close enough to tennis that you can follow a match after one session. This page sets out the rules as the International Padel Federation writes them, without the legal phrasing.

The rules in one minute

If you only read one part of this page, read this list. It covers most of what happens in a real match.

1. The court is 20m by 10m and fully enclosed by glass and mesh.
2. Four players, two per side. Singles courts exist but are rare.
3. The serve is underarm. You bounce the ball once, then strike it at or below waist height.
4. The serve goes diagonally into the opposite service box, and you get two attempts.
5. The receiver must let the serve bounce before returning it.
6. After that, the ball may be volleyed or played after one bounce.
7. The ball must bounce on the ground on your side before it touches any of your walls.
8. Once it has bounced, you may play it off your own glass or mesh.
9. Your return must cross the net without touching anything on your own side first.
10. Scoring is 15, 30, 40, game, then six games for a set and usually two sets for the match.

The court

A padel court is a rectangle 20 metres long and 10 metres wide, with a tolerance of 0.5%. A net across the middle splits it into two halves of 10m by 10m.

The net sags in the middle by design. It is 0.88m at the centre and rises to 0.92m at the posts, so the safest place to pass a pair is down the middle.

The lines

Each half has one service line 6.95m back from the net, running parallel to it. A centre service line runs from the net to that service line and splits the service area into two boxes. That centre line carries on for 20cm past the service line, which matters when a server stands close to it.

There is no line along the side of the court. The glass and the mesh mark the edge, so a ball is only out when it hits a surface above the playing area or leaves the enclosure.

The glass and the mesh

The back of each half is closed by a wall 3 metres high with 1 metre of mesh above it, 4 metres in total. The back wall is normally toughened glass, which is why you can watch a match from behind the court.

The sides are usually a mix. The common layout puts glass 3 metres high in the first 2 metres next to each back wall, with mesh above, and metal mesh along the rest of the side. Panoramic courts replace more of that mesh with glass. Either way every surface inside the enclosure is live, and the ball behaves differently off glass than off mesh. Glass gives a true, fast rebound. Mesh kills the ball and sends it out at an angle you cannot predict.

Most courts have an access opening on each side near the net. Some courts are sealed. That difference changes one rule, which is covered further down.

The ball and the racket

A padel ball looks like a tennis ball and is not one. It is slightly smaller and slightly softer, so it sits up less and travels shorter.

The racket is solid, with no strings. The hitting surface may be perforated with holes of 9 to 13mm. The frame may be any shape, and the limits are fixed:

• Maximum length 45.5cm, including the handle.
• Maximum width 26cm.
• Maximum thickness 38mm.
• A wrist cord is compulsory and must be used during play. It is there so the racket does not fly into a glass panel or into a partner.

Call it a racket. The sport is padel, and padel tennis is only an informal English name for the same game.

The serve, in brief

The serve is the rule most new players get wrong, so here is the short version. There is a full page at padel serve rules with the foot positions and the edge cases.

1. Stand behind the service line, between the centre service line and the side wall.
2. Bounce the ball on the ground once. One bounce only.
3. Strike it at or below waist height.
4. Keep at least one foot on the ground as you hit. You may not jump.
5. Send it diagonally into the opposite service box.

The first serve of a game is taken from the right half of the court. After that the server alternates sides on every point.

A serve that lands in the correct box and then hits the side glass or the back glass is good, and the receiver plays it. A serve that lands in the correct box and then hits the metal mesh is a fault, even though the same contact would be fine during a rally. A serve that touches the net and still lands in the correct box is a let, and it is replayed. A serve that touches the net and then hits the mesh is a fault.

You get two attempts. Two faults in a row loses the point.

Scoring, in brief

Padel borrows tennis scoring exactly. Points run 15, 30, 40, game. Six games win a set, with a margin of two. At 6-6 the set is decided by a tie-break to 7 points.

At 40-40 there are two ways to finish the game. The traditional way is deuce and advantage, where a pair must win two points in a row. The other way is the golden point: one single point decides the game, and the receiving pair chooses which of them takes it. The golden point is standard in professional padel and in most club leagues, because it keeps matches to a predictable length.

The full breakdown, with a worked example of a whole game, is on the padel scoring page. The tie-break sequence and the golden point are covered on padel tie-break and golden point.

The walls, and how the ball may be played off them

This is the rule that makes padel its own sport. Two sentences cover almost all of it.

On your side, the ball must hit the ground before it hits anything else. If the ball comes over the net and strikes your glass or your mesh before it bounces on the floor, you have already lost the point. You do not get to play it.

Once it has bounced, the walls are yours to use. The ball can come off your back glass, off a side wall, off both, or off the mesh, and you may still return it, as long as it has not bounced on the ground a second time.

What you may not do

Your return has to reach the other side without touching any surface on your own half. You cannot play the ball into your own back wall and let it rebound over the net. That is a lost point, and it is the mistake beginners make when a lob pins them to the glass.

What happens at the other end

Your shot must bounce on the floor of the opponents' half before it touches their walls. A ball you smash straight into their back glass on the full is out, however good it looks. Once your shot has bounced on their floor, it can rebound off any of their surfaces and the point carries on.

A ball in play that clips the top of the net and drops over is live. Only a serve gets replayed for that.

The ball that leaves the court

A hard shot often bounces on the opponents' floor, rebounds off their back glass and flies out over the enclosure. The point is not over.

If the court has side openings, a player may run out through the opening and play the ball back from outside, as long as the ball has already bounced once inside their own half. The return has to come back into the opposing court, over or around the net posts, and it can be played at any height. Nothing in the rules says the ball must travel back over the net. It can pass outside the post, even below net height, and it still counts if it lands in.

The reverse shot exists too. You may hit the ball out over the enclosure so that it lands in the opponents' half. Spanish players call it por tres. It is legal and it wins the point if they cannot reach it.

Two limits apply. You may not touch the net, the posts or any part of the opponents' half while you are out there. And on a sealed court with no openings, a ball that leaves the enclosure is simply the end of the point.

Faults: when you lose the point

A pair loses the point in any of these situations.

• The ball bounces twice on their floor.
• The ball hits their glass or mesh before it bounces on their floor.
• Their return hits a surface on their own side before crossing to the other half.
• Their shot lands outside the opposing court, or hits the opponents' walls before bouncing on the opponents' floor.
• Their shot hits an opponent, an opponent's clothing or an opponent's racket before it bounces.
• A player hits the ball twice in one shot, or the pair both touch it.
• A player hits the ball before it has crossed the net to their side.
• A player, their racket or their clothing touches the net, the posts or the opponents' half while the ball is in play.
• A player is hit by the ball anywhere on their own body, whether or not they meant it.
• The server misses both serve attempts.
• The player drops the racket while striking, or plays a shot with the racket out of their hand.

The ball hitting a player on the body is worth reading twice. If your partner's smash hits you, your pair loses the point. If you are struck by an opponent's shot before it bounces, the opponents win the point, even if you were standing outside the court at the time.

Lets

A let means the point is played again with no penalty. In padel it comes up far less often than people expect.

• A serve that touches the net or the net cord and lands in the correct service box is a let. The server takes that attempt again.
• A serve that touches the net, lands in, and then hits the mesh is a fault, not a let.
• A ball from another court, or any outside interference during a rally, is a let and the whole point is replayed.
• A rally ball that clips the net and continues is not a let. Play carries on.

If a let is called on a second serve, the server still has that second serve. A let does not take an attempt away.

Positions, sides and changing ends

Padel is a doubles game and the positional rules are fixed for the length of a set.

Serving order

Each pair decides who serves first. That order then holds for the whole set: pair A player one, pair B player one, pair A player two, pair B player two, and back round. You may change the order at the start of the next set.

Receiving sides

Each receiver picks a side, right or left, and stays there for the entire set. You cannot swap the right-court and left-court player mid-set to chase a matchup. You can swap at the start of a new set.

During a rally there are no zones at all. Either player may hit any ball, either player may stand anywhere on their half, and you can cross behind each other as often as you like. The side rule only applies to receiving serve.

Where pairs actually stand

The serving pair starts split: the server behind the service line, the partner at the net. The receiving pair starts back, both near their service line, because neither of them can volley the serve. As soon as the return is away, the receiving pair tries to reach the net. The pair at the net wins most padel points, so the whole rhythm of a rally is one pair trying to move up and the other trying to lob them back.

Changing ends

Pairs change ends after the first game of a set and then after every second game, so at the end of games 1, 3, 5 and so on. Inside a tie-break, ends change every 6 points.

The rest periods are also fixed: 20 seconds between points, 90 seconds at a changeover, and 120 seconds between sets. There is no changeover break after the first game of a set.

Where to go next

This page is the overview. Each of these goes deeper on one piece of it.

• How to play padel: the beginner version, written for a first session.
• Padel serve rules: foot faults, the waist-height test, and every serve edge case.
• Padel scoring: points, games, sets and a worked example.
• Padel tie-break and golden point: the serving sequence and when each format is used.

Local leagues vary on two things and only two: whether they use the golden point, and whether a deciding set is a full set or a short tie-break. Check those before a tournament. Everything else on this page is the same on every court.