Padel and pickleball 2026: both rulebooks changed

The padel rulebook and the pickleball rulebook both changed in 2026. And if your club has both courts, you are not running one rulebook with two chapters: you are running two different rulebooks at the same time.

One is signed by the FIP. The other by USA Pickleball. Two bodies with no link between them, that do not coordinate and have no reason to agree. This article is what a club with both courts needs to have straight.

Both tightened the serve, and they watch different things

The coincidence is odd: both rulebooks tightened the serve in the same year. The difference is where they look.

Padel watches your feet and the ball. One foot has to stay behind the line, and the ball must not cross it either.

Pickleball watches the paddle and the ball. The paddle has to move clearly upward, and contact with the ball happens below the waist.

Put another way: the same gesture, and two rulebooks that are not watching the same point. If you referee at your club, you cannot look at the same thing on both courts.

Same gesture, two rulebooks looking in different places. In padel, the feet. In pickleball, the paddle.

The surprise: spin on the pickleball serve

This is the point that causes the most arguments in clubs with both courts. In pickleball, spin on the serve is not banned.

What is banned is spinning it with your hand as you release the ball. With the paddle, at the moment of contact, you can — and the 2026 rulebook now says so in plain words, because the official document itself admits this was one of the most misunderstood rules.

Padel has nothing like it, and that is where the confusion comes from: anyone arriving from padel assumes spin on the serve is somehow shady, and in pickleball it is legal.

Padel’s big change is at deuce

While pickleball was clearing up the spin question, padel was changing something else: what happens at forty all.

There are now three options, and each competition picks one: the classic advantage, the golden point, or the Star Point at the third deuce.

The detail almost everyone gets wrong: the Star Point is not played at the first forty all. It is played at the third deuce — two advantages wasted and, on the third, one decisive point.

A doubtful ball, with no referee

In pickleball it is settled and written down: there is no referee, and if you and your partner disagree, the ball is in. The benefit of the doubt goes to your opponents.

For padel we are not going to tell you, and that is deliberate. We have not found the rule that settles it for a club match with no chair umpire, and we would rather leave a gap than fill it with whatever sounds reasonable. If your tournament has a criterion, publish it before you start: that is worth more than any rule we could give you here.

What happens off the court got stricter too

Both rulebooks went after behaviour, each in its own way.

In padel, the umpire can now penalise the coach, not just the players.

In pickleball, spectators went from «should not» call balls to «must not», with penalties attached. A one-word change that turns a recommendation into an obligation.

Both rulebooks at a glance

So which one applies at your club?

Whichever one your tournament adopts. Neither rulebook applies just because it exists: it applies because the competition adopts it.

So the practical answer is the dullest and the most useful: ask before you start, and publish it with the draw. Half the arguments on court get settled there, and not on court.