Quick Answer: A regulation padel court measures 20 meters long by 10 meters wide (about 65.6 x 32.8 feet), per the International Padel Federation’s 2026 rulebook, with a 0.5% construction tolerance. The service line sits 6.95 meters from the net, the net itself is 0.88 meters high at center and 0.92 meters at the posts, and the enclosing walls run 4 meters tall at the back (3m glass + 1m mesh) stepping down to 3 meters along the sides. That’s roughly half the footprint of a tennis court, which is the single biggest reason padel rallies feel so much faster.
If you’ve only ever watched padel on a phone screen, the court can be hard to judge — there’s no broadcast angle that makes “20 by 10 meters, walled in” intuitive until you’ve stood on one. This guide breaks down every official measurement from the FIP rulebook, in one place, with the numbers that actually matter if you’re building a court, coaching, or just trying to understand why the ball keeps coming back off the glass.
By the numbers
- The court’s interior measures 20m x 10m (65.6 x 32.8 ft), with a 0.5% tolerance allowed in construction, according to the FIP’s Rules of Padel (effective January 1, 2026).
- The service line sits 6.95 meters from the net on each side, with a central service line dividing each box that must extend at least 20cm beyond the service line itself. All court lines are 5cm wide.
- The net is 0.88m high at the center and 0.92m at the posts, with a maximum manufacturing tolerance of just 0.005m — tighter than most players would guess.
- Back walls stand 4m tall (3m tempered glass + 1m galvanized mesh); side walls hold that 4m height for the first 2m out from each back corner, then step down to 3m for the rest of their run toward the net.
Length, width & total playing area
The 20m x 10m interior is fixed by the FIP rulebook with only a 0.5% tolerance for construction — there’s very little room for a builder to round up or down. In square footage, that works out to roughly 2,153 sq ft (200 sq meters) of enclosed playing surface, split evenly by the net into two 10m x 10m halves. Compare that to a doubles tennis court at 23.77m x 10.97m (about 261 sq meters) and you can see why padel courts fit into spaces tennis courts never could — a padel court needs roughly 23% less area, and the enclosing walls mean there’s no out-of-bounds strip to fence off separately.
| Measurement | Padel court | Tennis court (doubles) |
|---|---|---|
| Length | 20 m (65.6 ft) | 23.77 m (78 ft) |
| Width | 10 m (32.8 ft) | 10.97 m (36 ft) |
| Total area | ~200 sq m | ~261 sq m |
| Net height (center) | 0.88 m | 0.914 m |
| Enclosing walls | Yes, 3-4 m glass/mesh | No |
| Sanctioned singles play | No — doubles only | Yes |
If the sport’s rules and scoring interest you as much as the court itself, our padel rules for beginners guide covers serving, scoring, and the wall-play rule in full, and our padel vs tennis comparison walks through every other difference between the two sports.
Service line, service boxes & court markings
The service line runs 6.95 meters from the net on both sides, parallel to it, and marks the back edge of the service boxes players must land their serves inside. A central service line splits each side’s service area into two boxes and must extend at least 20cm past the service line to be legal under FIP spec. Every line on the court — service lines, the central line, and the perimeter — is 5cm wide, a detail that matters more than it sounds: a ball landing on the line is in, so a wider or narrower line than spec quietly changes how generous close calls are.
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Measuring your own club’s court against these numbers before a tournament? Start your free Audible trial and queue up a rules podcast for the drive over.
Net height: closer to tennis than you’d think
At 0.88m at the center and 0.92m at the posts, a padel net sits only a few centimeters lower than a tennis net (0.914m at the center). The FIP allows a maximum tolerance of just 0.005m in manufacturing, which is tight enough that a poorly-strung or sagging net is usually a maintenance issue, not a spec issue. The narrower 10-meter net (versus tennis’s 10.97m doubles width) is one more reason padel rallies stay compact — there’s simply less net to cover laterally.
Wall heights & materials
This is the specification that actually defines padel as a sport, since the walls are what make the game’s signature off-the-glass shots legal. Back walls run 4 meters tall, built from 3 meters of solid tempered glass (typically 10-12mm thick) topped with 1 meter of galvanized metal mesh with a maximum opening of 7.08cm x 7.08cm — mesh that has to be rigid enough to give a predictable, consistent ball rebound. Side walls match that 4-meter height for the first 2 meters measured out from each back corner, then drop to 3 meters for the remaining length toward the net. That stepped-down side-wall height is why smashes and defensive lobs behave differently depending on where on the court they land — the wall geometry genuinely changes which shots are recoverable. For more on how wall rebounds work during actual play, see the wall-play section of our padel rules for beginners guide.
The bottom line
A regulation padel court is a fixed, tightly-toleranced rectangle — 20m x 10m, a net stepping from 0.88m to 0.92m, a service line 6.95m from the net, and walls running 3-4m tall in glass and mesh — and every one of those numbers comes straight from the FIP’s 2026 rulebook rather than club tradition. Understanding the layout makes the sport easier to watch and easier to play: you’ll know exactly how deep you can stand before the back glass becomes a liability, and why the service box feels tighter than a tennis box the first time you serve into one. Once the court makes sense, our best padel racket pillar guide and best padel racket for beginners roundup will get you outfitted to actually use it.