Pickleball Rule Changes for 2025 — USA Pickleball Rule Book
The official 2025 pickleball rulebook has been released by USA Pickleball and we’re going to break down some of the more significant changes that will affect your game.
If you want to review the changes for 2024, check out our last post:
Adam Forziati
Over 130 changes were proposed to the USA Pickleball Rules Committee. You can find all the proposed rule changes, including those not approved, on the USA Pickleball rules website.
Let’s break down some of the more interesting or significant changes made to the rulebook for 2025:
Guiding Principle Change
This is not a change to the game’s rules but more of a principle in which the rules are made. Other guiding principles relate to not being vague, ensuring there are precedents to the rules made, and that it applies to all levels of the sport.
“Prevent a paddle from dominating the sport” [link]
The word paddle has been added to the phrase:
“Preserve the unique features and rules of the sport involving the Non-Volley Zone and the two-bounce rule and prevent one shot, one paddle, or type of play from dominating the sport.”
This was added to address the newer ‘hot’ paddles that would suggest players can ‘buy’ their chances of success.
Rule Changes Affecting Rec Play
Faults Other than NVZ and Service Faults Should be Addressed After the Rally [link]
New language on calling faults has been added so that players in non-officiated matches (no ref) should wait until after the rally has ended up address any potential faults (other than service faults and non-volley faults).
The idea behind this is to prevent players from stopping a rally for a perceived fault and being incorrect.
Scenario: A player on team A hits the ball and a player on team B suspects they made contact below the wrist (which would be a fault). Instead of stopping the play, they continue the rally and afterwards, ask player on team A where they made contact.
It’s worth noting that this relies on the honesty of the team being accused of a fault to be honest if one was committed. The new language is designed to prevent rallies from being stopped prematurely based on potential faults that are hard to judge in the moment.
This does not apply to someone committing a service fault or non-volley zone fault where the play should be stopped immediately.
Verbal ‘Not Ready’ Signals Are Now Recognized [link]
Previously, once a score had been called – there was no way to prevent the point from being played. This resulted in ‘quick serves’ where the receiver wasn’t ready.
With this change, you can now say “stop” or “wait,” the server must wait to serve the ball. Note that a hand signal is not recognized in this instance.
Change to the Definition of a “Volley” [link]
The definition of a volley now explicitly begins at the point of contact with the ball and ends once the follow-through momentum of the swing stops. This means your preparation to hit the ball is not part of a volley.
Scenario 1: Your feet are inside the NVZ when a ball is lobbed above you. You begin to move your paddle up to volley the ball out of the air while moving your feet outside of the kitchen. So long as your feet are re-established at the point the ball hits the paddle, no fault is committed.
Scenario 2: While dinking with your opponents, your paddle scrapes the ground before you volley the ball out of the air. This is no longer considered a fault.
Calling Faults on Your Partner [link]
A fairly simple addition to the rule that you are expected to call faults on your partner just as much as they should own up to it themselves. This one is written with good sportsmanship in mind – so honesty policy in full effect here.
Distractions When Preparing to Hit a Ball [link]
This rule change adds the words ‘prepare to hit’ to the timeframe a distraction can be called. So now a fault can be called if the offending team causes a distraction during:
- the mental concentration of the player before preparing to strike the ball
- any physical preparation the player takes before striking the ball
- the actual physical act of striking the ball.
You Can Erne In Mini Singles [link]
Less of a rule change and more of a clarification — but now the rules have been amended to make it very clear that when playing mini or ‘skinny’ singles, the side of the court not being played (including the kitchen) is out of bounds.
This means you can Erne by jumping into the kitchen, so long as it’s on the side of the court not being played in.
Rule Changes Affecting Tournament Play
Introduction of Rally Scoring [link]
Rally scoring has now been officially entered into the USA Pickleball handbook. The traditional way of scoring is still considered the preferred scoring method however tournament directors can now officially use rally scoring if they choose.
Some items that were clarified concerning rally scoring:
- Points are awarded after every rally except on game-point
- Game-point can only be scored when serving
- Only one server per side-out
Note: All other doubles rules apply, meaning that when a team wins a point – they must switch sides to be positioned correctly based on their score. This differs from other formats of rally scoring where the players stay on the same side the entire game.
Scenario: You are the receiving team and win the rally. You gain the serve and must switch sides to accurately reflect your correct position, even though you did not serve the previous point.
The Tournament Director Can Assign Faults Between Matches [link]
Previously, there was no real way to punish players who exhibited bad behavior between matches. For example, a player loses a match and throws their paddle. Since they lost their match, no point deductions or forfeits would apply.
The new rules state that a tournament director can issue a verbal/technical warning or technical foul that will follow them into their next match.
Autographed Paddles [link]
Players can now enter sanctioned tournaments with autographed paddles. Previously, you could only write your name and address on your paddle face without being an issue but autographs weren’t permitted.
Round Robin Withdrawal Removes all Previous Match Scores [link]
If a team withdraws from a tournament during round-robin pool play, all their previous matches will be removed and not considered in the ranking of the other teams.
This may take some time to implement since it will require tournament software to be updated.