Padel Serve Rules, Faults and Lets Explained (UK)

A valid padel serve has to meet all of these:

• Underarm contact at or below the waist. Under FIP rules the strike must be at or below 1.06m - roughly waist height. No overhead or above-waist serves.
• Bounce first. You must drop the ball and let it bounce once on the floor on your side before striking it. You can't hit it out of the air.
• Behind the service line. You stand behind the service line, between it and the back glass, and serve from the correct side.
• Diagonal into the service box. The serve must travel diagonally over the net and land in the receiver's service box (and may then bounce up onto the side wall - that's still in).
• At least one foot down. One foot must stay in contact with the ground at the moment of contact.

Any of these is a fault:

• Hitting above the waist (above 1.06m) or overhead.
• Foot fault - stepping on or over the service line or centre line before contact, or jumping (no foot on the ground at contact). Jump serves are not allowed.
• Missing the box - the serve lands outside the correct diagonal service box, or hits the wire fence/back wall before bouncing in.
• No bounce or double bounce - failing to bounce the ball first, or letting it bounce twice.
• Whiffing it - swinging and missing the ball entirely.

One fault gives you a second serve. Two faults in a row is a double fault and you lose the point.

A let is a replayed serve. If your serve clips the top of the net (a net cord) but still lands correctly in the diagonal service box, it's a let and you take that serve again with no penalty. This applies to both your first and second serve - a let on a second serve doesn't cost you the point, you simply replay it. A ball that hits the net and lands outside the box, however, is a normal fault, not a let.

Like tennis, you get two serve attempts per point, and the same player serves the whole game. The serving side starts from the right-hand side of the court, serving diagonally; after each point, the server switches to the other side and serves to the other box, alternating throughout the game. Whichever player is serving keeps serving until the game ends, then service passes to an opponent. For how the points themselves are counted, see our scoring guide and the golden point rules.

One change is worth flagging: from January 2026, the FIP ruled that on the serve, the ball must not cross any court line in the air before the moment of contact. In practice that means you can't position and strike the ball so that it has already travelled beyond the service line or centre line before you hit it - the contact has to happen before the ball crosses those lines. It's a technical tweak most recreational players won't notice, but it's the current rule, so it's worth knowing if you play sanctioned competition.