How badminton scoring works, rally by rally

Badminton scoring is rally scoring: every rally is worth a point to whoever wins it, serving or not. Games go to 21, and you have to win by two. If the score reaches 29-all, the next point takes the game at 30.

The badminton scoring system: a point on every rally

You win a rally when the shuttle lands inside your opponent's court, or when they fault — into the net, out, a double hit, a sling or carry, a shuttle that touches body or clothing, a foot lifted during service. That point goes on your score whether you served or received. Holding serve privileges nobody.

The exception is a let, called when something genuinely interrupts play: a shuttle drifting in from the next court, a receiver who wasn't ready and didn't try to play the serve, a serve that clears the net and then lodges in it. The rally is replayed from the same score with the same server, and nobody scores.

That makes a bad serve expensive — a service fault costs a point and the serve. Check which service-height law your competition uses. BWF events measure against a fixed height, with the whole shuttle below 1.15 m from the floor when the racket strikes it, while plenty of club and league play still uses the older test: shuttle below the server's waist, racket shaft pointing down.

How to score badminton: 21 points, best of three

A game goes to the first side to reach 21 points, subject to the win-by-two and 30-point rules below. A match is the best of three games, so it finishes 2-0 or 2-1 — no fourth game, no aggregate points. All five disciplines use identical numbers: men's and women's singles, men's and women's doubles, mixed doubles. The court underneath them isn't identical — the singles court is narrower, and a doubles serve has to land inside a shorter long service line — but none of that touches the score. The wider badminton rules cover the court and the full fault list.

Three administrative details ride along with the score:

• The side that wins a game serves first in the next game.
• Players change ends at the end of the first game, at the end of the second, and again in a third game when either side first reaches 11 points.
• There's a 60-second interval once the leading score reaches 11 in a game, and 120 seconds between games.

Win by two: what deuce looks like at 20-all

At 20-all, 21 doesn't win anything. The game goes to whichever side first builds a two-point lead. Players call this deuce, borrowing the word from tennis; the Laws of Badminton don't use it — they just say the side gaining a two-point lead first wins the game.

A worked scoreline from 20-all, written A-B, with A serving:

• A wins the rally — 21-20. Not game: a one-point lead.
• B wins — 21-21, and the serve passes to B.
• B wins again — 21-22. Still not game.
• A wins — 22-22, serve back to A.
• A wins — 23-22. Not game.
• A wins — 24-22, game. Two clear points.

Long deuces are where club scores get disputed: one side remembers 24-23, the other remembers 23-24, and nobody wrote anything down. Badminton Scoreboard is a badminton scoreboard app for iPhone and Apple Watch that tracks match scores, which keeps the running total out of the argument.

The 30-point cap and the 29-all point

Win-by-two doesn't run forever. If the score reaches 29-all, the side that scores the 30th point wins the game outright, with no margin required. It's the only game-winning point in badminton that doesn't need a two-point cushion, and it exists so a game can't stretch indefinitely against a schedule. Those two lines — win by two, cap at 30 — are the only badminton scoring rules that decide where a game ends. Everything else is about who serves.

Who serves next, and from which service court

Serving follows the score rather than a rotation. Two rules cover it:

1. The side that won the last rally serves next.
2. The serving side's own score picks the service court — even (including 0) serves from the right, odd serves from the left. The serve always travels diagonally.

Singles

Win a rally on your own serve and you score, then serve the next one from the other service court, alternating right and left as your score climbs. Lose it and your opponent scores and serves, from their right or left according to their score. Ends change between games, and at 11 in a third game — never otherwise.

Doubles

One server per side — the second server went out with the old system. If the serving pair wins the rally, the same player serves again and the two partners swap service courts. If the receiving pair wins, they take the point and the serve but they do not swap: whichever partner is already standing in the court matching their new score serves.

That is the most-argued rule in club doubles. Positions change only on the serving side, and only after it wins a point. So if you win the rally that moves you from 8 to 9 and hands you the serve, 9 is odd, and the partner already standing in the left service court serves.

Rally scoring vs the old badminton scoring system

Before 2006, badminton used service scoring: only the serving side could add a point. Winning a rally as the receiver earned you the serve, not a number on the board, so a game could sit at 9-7 through several minutes of play. The IBF — renamed the Badminton World Federation later that same year — moved every discipline to 21-point rally scoring in 2006.

Rule	Rally scoring (2006 onward)	Service scoring (pre-2006)
Who can score	Whoever wins the rally	Only the serving side
Game target	21 in all five disciplines	15 in men's singles and all doubles; 11 in women's singles
Breaking a tie	Automatic win-by-two from 20-all	Optional "setting" at 13-all or 14-all (9-all or 10-all in the 11-point game)
Upper limit	30 — the 29-all point wins it	Whichever setting target was chosen
Doubles serves	One server per side	Two servers per side, except the first turn of a game
Losing a rally on serve	Costs a point and the serve	Costs the serve only

For club players, three things changed. There's no second server to track, no dead stretches where the score doesn't move, and the serve became a liability rather than a weapon — which is why the low serve to the short service line took over doubles. Match length also got more predictable, which matters when courts are booked by the hour. The BWF has trialed other formats since, including best-of-five games to 11 points, but 21-point rally scoring is still the law.

FAQ

What is rally scoring in badminton?

Rally scoring means the winner of each rally gets a point regardless of who served. Badminton switched to it in 2006, replacing a system in which only the serving side could score. Every rally now moves the scoreboard, so a game takes at least 21 rallies, and many more once it reaches deuce.

What is deuce in badminton?

Deuce is the informal name for 20-all, the point at which the game can no longer be won by a single point. From there one side has to lead by two — 22-20, 23-21, and so on — or be first to 30. Umpires don't announce "deuce"; they just call the score.

How many points do you need to win a badminton game?

21, provided you get there with at least a two-point cushion. From 20-all you keep playing until one side leads by two, and if the score climbs to 29-all the next point wins it at 30. A match is won by taking two games.

Who serves after a point in badminton?

The side that won the rally. In singles that's the rally winner, serving from the right court on an even score and the left on an odd one. In doubles, the same player serves again if their side already had the serve, moving to the other service court; a side that has just won the serve keeps its positions and serves from whichever court matches its new score.

Can you lose a point on your own serve?

Yes. Since 2006 losing a rally always costs a point, including a rally you served. A serve that lands out, fails to clear the net, misses the correct service court, or breaks the service-height law hands your opponent a point and the serve at once.