What does a padel referee do?

A padel referee, also called an umpire, applies the rules during the match: they call the score, make sure the right player serves from the right side, rule on faults, lets and nets, call the changes of sides, and deal with disputes and conduct. At professional events the umpire sits in a chair beside the court.

Do you need a referee to play padel?

No. Almost all club and social padel is played without one. The four players call the score, track the serve and rule on their own side of the court, which works well as long as you agree the basics before the first point.

Who keeps score in a padel match without a referee?

The serving pair says the score aloud before every serve, with their own score first. If the two pairs disagree, the usual fix is to replay the point or agree the score you both remember, and to say it aloud more often. A scoring app can keep the count so nobody has to hold it in their head.

Can an app be a padel referee?

For the score and the serve, yes: an app can keep the count, say it aloud and show who serves and from which side. It cannot call faults, lets or whether a ball was in, so the players still make those calls themselves.

How do you become a padel referee?

Through your national federation. The FIP and national federations run referee courses and qualifications, and the requirements differ from country to country. Start with your own federation’s referee page rather than a general course listing.

What is the difference between a padel umpire and a referee?

The words are used loosely. The umpire is usually the official on the chair who runs a single match; the tournament referee (juez árbitro in Spanish) is responsible for the event as a whole and for rulings that go beyond one match.

Padel referee: what they do and how to referee your own match

Rules version: where this page cites rules, it follows the FIP Rules of Padel, revision applying from 1 January 2026, as our rules articles do. Written 23 October 2026. Parts of this page describe how officials work in practice rather than quoting the rulebook, and we say so where that is the case.

A padel referee (also called an umpire) is the person who runs a match under the rules: they call and announce the score, keep track of who serves and from which side, call the changes of sides, rule on faults, lets and disputed balls, and keep the match moving. At professional events that is a dedicated official on a chair. At nearly every club and social game there is nobody, and the four players do all of it between them.

This page covers both: what the job actually involves, and how to do it well when the “referee” is you and three friends. If you are looking for a career in officiating, there is a short section near the end on where to start.

What a padel referee does in a match

Here is the job, piece by piece. Where the rule details are already on our other pages, we link them rather than repeat them.

Calls and announces the score

The referee says the score so that everyone on court, and anyone watching, has the same number. Points count 0, 15, 30, 40 and game, and the serving pair’s score is called first: “30-15” means the servers have 30. At 40-40 the call is “deuce”, and from there the agreed method decides the game. The full count, with a worked example, is in how padel scoring works.

Keeps the serve order and the serving side

Each pair alternates service games, and within the pair each player serves in a fixed order for the whole set. The first point of a game is served from the right, then the side alternates every point. If someone serves from the wrong side or out of turn, the error is corrected as soon as it is noticed, and the points already played stand. The details are in our padel serve rules article (FIP Rule 6 §7 and §9).

Calls the changes of sides

The pairs swap sides after the first game and then after every odd game of the set (Rule 5 §1). In a tie-break they change every six points (Rule 5 §2).

Runs the tie-break and the deciding point

In a tie-break the player due to serve takes one point from the right, the opposing pair serves the next two, and from then on each player serves two in a row. After a normal game, the referee also announces the deciding point when the game gets to 40-40 under the agreed method. With the golden point or the Star Point, the receiving pair chooses the side it receives on for that point, and the receivers cannot swap positions.

Rules on faults, lets and nets

This is the part most people picture when they think of a referee. On the serve, the referee decides whether it is a fault (wrong foot position, above the waist, wrong box, hitting the fence after the bounce), a “net” that is replayed, or a let because the receiver was not ready. A serve gets two attempts, and a second consecutive fault loses the point. The full list is in the serve rules article.

During a rally the referee also rules on the calls that decide points, such as a ball that bounced twice, or a ball that hit the fence when it should have hit the glass. Those rulings are why professional matches have an official with a clear view of the court.

Keeps the match moving and handles conduct

The rulebook also covers time between points and the conduct of players, and a referee can penalise breaches. We have not summarised those rules on this page, so check the current FIP Rules of Padel on the FIP website before you rely on a specific time limit or penalty.

Umpire, tournament referee and line judges

These roles overlap in everyday speech, so here is the plain version:

Chair umpire. The official who runs one match from a chair beside the court, calls the score and makes the in-match rulings. Professional events, including the Premier Padel and FIP tours, use chair umpires.
Tournament referee (juez árbitro). The official responsible for the event: the draw, the schedule, the application of the rules and decisions that go beyond a single match.
Line judges and other officials. Some events add further officials to help with calls. We have not confirmed how this works at each level, so we won’t describe it in detail.

The set-up changes with the level of the event. Most club padel, social padel and friendly matches have none of these, and most amateur leagues rely on the players themselves.

Want to become a padel referee?

Federations train and certify officials. The FIP (the international federation) and national federations, such as the LTA in Great Britain and Padel New Zealand, run referee courses for people who want to officiate. Requirements and course formats differ by country and change over time, so go to your own federation for current details. The FIP site is the starting point for the international rules and tour information.

Refereeing your own match

Most of us play without a referee, so the real skill is refereeing yourselves. These are the habits that have saved the most arguments in our own weekly social games.

Agree the format before the first point. Deciding method at 40-40 (advantage, Star Point or golden point), best of three sets or a super tie-break instead of a third set, and whether any local rule applies, such as the roof on an indoor court. Our Star Point guide covers the three methods.
Decide who serves first, and the order within each pair, and say it aloud. The order stays fixed for the set, so a quick “I serve, you serve, then them” is enough.
The serving pair calls the score before every serve, their own score first. This takes about two seconds and is the cheapest dispute prevention there is.
Each side calls the balls on its own side of the court. If you cannot tell, the benefit of the doubt goes to the opponents. Call it loudly and straight away.
The server’s partner and the receiver watch the service faults. The server is concentrating on the toss and the bounce, so the opposite side usually has the better view of the foot and the box. Say “fault” or “net” clearly.
If you cannot agree, replay the point. Nobody can prove what happened, and a replay costs a minute, not the match.
Remember the side changes. The pairs swap sides after the first game and then every odd game; the first game of a set is the one people forget.

Our team plays social padel every week with no referee, and two questions cause nearly all of our stoppages: “whose serve is it?” and “what’s the score?” Both are memory problems, not rules problems, so habits 2 and 3 above do most of the work. The rules behind them are in how padel scoring works and the padel serve rules.