In short: a padel court measures 10 by 20 meters, enclosed by glass walls and metal mesh that keep the ball in play. The net sits at 88 cm in the center, service boxes are marked 6.95 meters from the net, and the whole space is roughly a quarter of a tennis court.
People assume a padel court is just a shrunken tennis court with fences bolted on. It is not. The walls are part of the game, the measurements are fixed by regulation, and every line has a job. Here is how the box you play in is actually built.
What are the dimensions of a padel court?
The playing area is a rectangle 20 meters long and 10 meters wide. That size is set by the International Padel Federation and does not change between clubs, so a court in Madrid plays the same as one in Tel Aviv.
The court is split into two halves by the net. Each half runs 10 meters back from the net to the rear glass. A center service line divides each half lengthwise, creating the boxes where serves must land. If you are still learning where you should stand inside all this, our guide on padel for beginners walks through court positioning before your first match.
Walls, mesh and net: the measurements that matter
The enclosure is what makes padel padel. The back walls are tempered glass, usually 3 meters high, topped by a strip of metal mesh that brings the total back height to 4 meters. The ball can bounce off these surfaces and stay live, which changes almost every rally.
- Court size: 20 m long by 10 m wide
- Back glass wall: 3 m high, plus 1 m of mesh above it
- Net height: 88 cm at the center, 92 cm at the posts
- Service line distance: 6.95 m from the net on each side
- Center service line: splits each service zone into left and right boxes
- Access doors: one or two openings on the side walls
How is a padel court different from a tennis court?
The gap is bigger than it looks. A tennis court runs 23.77 meters long for singles, more than three meters longer than the entire padel court. Padel is always played inside walls; tennis has none. And the net sits lower in padel, changing how low you can drive the ball.
The ball rules also differ, which feeds into how each surface plays; if you want the detail, read our breakdown of padel balls vs tennis balls.
What is the surface and how are the boxes laid out?
The floor is synthetic turf, usually blue, green or terracotta, with fine sand brushed in for grip and a consistent bounce. Concrete and porous cement sit underneath.
The service boxes are the key markings. Each measures 6.95 meters deep from the net, split down the middle by the center service line into a right and a left box. A serve must bounce once inside the diagonal box before your opponent returns it. The rest of the court carries no internal lines, because the walls do the work of a boundary. For the full picture of how serves and points work, see padel rules and scoring explained.
Standard for the official measurements is the Padel entry on Wikipedia. Before you book a court, check the back wall is full glass and not chain-link only, since a mesh-only rear panel gives a duller, less predictable bounce.
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