What is a padel court?
A padel court is an enclosed court roughly a third the size of a tennis court, and the enclosure is the whole point: the glass walls are part of the game, with the ball allowed to rebound off them and stay in play. Courts measure 20 metres long by 10 metres wide, divided by a net that sits at 88cm in the centre. The back walls are glass to a height of 3 metres, topped and flanked by metal mesh up to 4 metres, and the playing surface is sand-dressed artificial turf. Padel is played in doubles, with two service boxes on each side, just like tennis.
New to the sport? Our complete beginner's guide to playing padel covers the rules, scoring and what your first game actually looks like.
For the full measurements, markings and wall heights, see our padel court dimensions guide.
Indoor and outdoor padel courts
British and Irish weather shapes where padel gets played. Outdoor courts are cheaper to build and more common, but wind and rain make them unreliable through the winter months, which is why covered and indoor courts are growing fastest. Of the 2,565 courts we track at open venues, 1,178 are indoor, and you can filter for indoor courts, floodlights and covered play in our venue directory.
How many padel courts are there in the UK and Ireland?
As of today, padelyeti tracks 750 open padel venues with 2,565 courts between them, across 537 towns and cities in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, with a further 168 venues opening soon. These are live figures, updated as venues open and close, and every court count is verified against the venue's own website or booking platform rather than estimated. For nation-by-nation breakdowns and the full numbers, see our padel statistics page.