The FIP’s third World Padel Report is 106 pages of numbers on participation, performance and, for the first time, money. We read every one of them as players do, from the back of the court looking out.
Every padel player knows the moment. The booking app opens, the 7pm slot has gone, and the 9.30pm one costs more than it should. You book it anyway. Multiply that moment by tens of millions and you have the story the International Padel Federation told in Madrid on 12 October, when president Luigi Carraro presented the World Padel Report 2026.
Now in its third edition, the report is the closest thing padel has to a census. It is built on a survey of 70 national federations, FIP’s own competition data and, this year, a first economic study produced with the consultancy OpenEconomics. It splits the sport into three pillars: participation, performance and organisation.
The official message is one of balance, “from the grassroots to the top level”. Read from the baseline, the message is simpler. The sport’s growth, its money and its future champions all start with ordinary players turning up to play.
Participation: 40 million, and nearly half of them women
The headline figure is 40 million amateur players, up from 35 million in last year’s report. The FIP’s definition is generous: anyone who played at least once in the past year. The more useful number is the 27 million who play regularly, at least once every week or two.
The gender split is the report’s most quietly radical statistic. Women make up 47% of amateur players worldwide, and the FIP calls padel “one of the sports most played by women”. Few racket sports can say that.
The balance breaks down, however, once players start competing. Federation licences passed one million for the first time, reaching 1,114,000, up 31% in a year. But 67.8% of licence holders are men. Women are on court in huge numbers, but they are not entering the competitive system at the same rate. For anyone running a club league, that is the gap worth closing.
There is a support-staff gap too. In its first survey of officials, the FIP counted almost 11,000 coaching licences and 17,000 refereeing licences worldwide. That is roughly one licensed coach for every 3,600 players.
The growth map: a new court every 36 minutes
The world now has 91,234 padel courts across 28,497 clubs, and the game is played in 191 countries and territories. The FIP passed 80,000 courts at the start of 2026 and 90,000 by the end of July. Over the full year it expects 14,618 new courts, roughly 40 a day, or one every 36 minutes. As the report puts it, “No racket sport has ever seen infrastructure expand at this speed.”
Europe still holds 62.5% of all courts, but the growth has moved east. For the first time, Asia opened more new clubs than Europe, accounting for 39% of all openings against Europe’s 37.1%. Indonesia is the standout. It has added 769 clubs and 2,534 courts in ten months, has become the third-most-visited country on the FIP website, and now runs four qualifying rounds at FIP events to cope with demand. Pakistan, India and China are all more than doubling. One reason, the report says, is cost: courts there can be installed for 70 to 80% less than in Europe or the Middle East.
Elsewhere the map is redrawing too:
- Spain and Italy have reached saturation. Spain still grows modestly, but Italy’s expansion “has now come to a halt”, with new courts going to small towns, not cities. Sweden has still not absorbed its 2020 boom.
- France, Great Britain and Germany, Europe’s “Big Three”, lead European growth for a third straight year. The Netherlands has passed 4,000 courts and overtaken Sweden to enter the global top five.
- Ireland is the FIP’s best-practice case, with courts projected to rise 298% this year on the back of a national ranking circuit, free coach training for new clubs and a new national league.
- The United States has passed 1,000 courts, growing about 50%. Egypt added 700 courts, and Australia grew about 150% to more than 170.
The report sums it up neatly: “The centre of gravity has not moved yet: it is moving.”
Oceania’s growth rate is the highest, but from a tiny base. Europe still added the most courts in absolute terms.
Follow the money: the player is the economy
The report’s big new chapter, the World Padel Impact, is the first serious attempt to price the sport. It estimates that padel will move €6.84bn in direct spending in 2026. Once that money moves through supply chains and wages, it generates €8.61bn of GDP, 235,663 full-time-equivalent jobs and €368m in indirect tax.
The breakdown is what should make every player sit up:
| Where the money goes, 2026 | € | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Court rental | 4.60bn | 67.2% |
| Building and maintaining courts | 1.31bn | 19.2% |
| Rackets, balls and clothing | 837m | 12.2% |
| Staging professional tournaments | 97m | 1.4% |
| Total | 6.84bn | 100% |
Two-thirds of the sport’s economy is people booking courts. The professional tour, with its TV deals and viral highlights, is 1.4%. The report says so plainly: the pro game is the sport’s “media shop window”, while “what moves money is the day-to-day use of the courts”.
The study is also deliberately cautious. It leaves out club memberships, coaching, TV rights and sports tourism, and counts only regular players’ kit spending. The real figure is almost certainly higher.
By country, Spain leads with €1.11bn of spending, 16.2% of the world total, ahead of Italy (€810m), France (€407m) and the United Kingdom (€343m). Per head of population, Sweden leads with €27.95 of padel GDP per resident, ahead of Spain on €22.
The ladder: from juniors to Premier Padel, and now amateurs too
The performance section shows a sport building a proper competitive ladder, fast. In 2026, for the first time, there is a rung for almost everyone.
- FIP Promises (juniors). The youth circuit doubled in 2025 to 4,759 players from 62 nations. This year it has 163 tournaments in 36 countries, up from 18 tournaments three years ago. An Under-12 category arrived in 2025, and 357 Promises graduates have already moved on to the professional circuit.
- Cupra FIP Tour (the proving ground). The tour began in 2019 with six events. It ran 307 in 2025 and has 431 confirmed for 2026. Last year 5,141 players from 104 nations entered, up 45%, and 17 countries are hosting events for the first time this year, from Benin to Uzbekistan.
- Qatar Airways Premier Padel (the elite). It has been the sole official professional circuit since 2024. This year’s calendar has 23 events plus the Finals in Barcelona, with first-ever stops in Pretoria and London.
- FIP Beyond (everyone else). Launched in 2026, this is the FIP’s first global amateur circuit. It has six age groups, from Amateur (18 to 39) up to +60, and three tournament levels. Its world ranking counts each player’s best 11 results and leads to world and continental pairs finals. Prize money is paid only in the senior (+40 to +60) categories at the top two levels.
FIP Beyond is the change club players should watch most closely. For the first time, the governing body is offering ordinary amateurs a ranked, international route to compete. Whether its entry fees, travel and calendar suit people with day jobs will decide whether it becomes a genuine pathway or a niche.
Inside the rankings: who actually makes it
The FIP ranking now includes 6,310 professional players from 113 nations: 4,482 men and 1,828 women. Below the elite it is genuinely global. At the top, it is still a closed shop.
- Spain dominates. Spanish players make up 26.7% of all ranked professionals, and 92% of the men’s top 100 come from just four nations. Madrid is home to more top-300 players than any other city, followed by Barcelona and Málaga. Rome, in sixth, is the first city outside Spain.
- The door is opening slowly. In 2025 Germany, Great Britain, Mexico and the United States all had a woman in the world top 100 for the first time. The men’s top 100 added no new nations.
- Peak age is 27. The average top-100 player is about 27, against about 29 for the rest of the ranking. A third of the top 300 is under 25, and the most common birth year is 2005.
- There is room for everyone. The youngest ranked players were born in 2011 and 2012. The oldest, Ivan Resnekov and Penelope Morrison, were born in 1956. Women’s world No 1 Gemma Triay, born in 1992, is the oldest player in the women’s top 10.
- You don’t need to be a giant. The most common height in the men’s top 100 is 1.80m to 1.84m. In the women’s top 100 it is 1.65m to 1.69m. Shorter than 1.80m? Thirty-four of the men’s top 100 are.
Where Britain fits
Great Britain appears all through the report, and the picture is a sport growing fast but still spread thin.
Britain added 978 courts and 244 clubs in ten months, and its court numbers are projected to grow 109.9% in 2026. It has passed 2,000 courts and entered the world’s top 15. The LTA puts participation at one million players, up from 15,000 in 2019. The UK is the world’s fourth-biggest padel market by spending, at €342.6m. Yet per head of population, padel generates €5.93 of GDP here, against €22 in Spain. More players than courts, in short, which is why peak slots are scarce and expensive.
At elite level, Aimee Gibson is the highest-ranked non-Spanish player in the Cupra FIP Tour’s all-time women’s titles table, with eight. Nine of Britain’s ten tour winners in 2025 were women. London has hosted 22 Cupra FIP Tour events and, in September, its first Premier Padel P1. The depth is still missing, though: 112 British juniors played FIP Promises in 2025, against 1,800 from Spain, and only 20 of them were girls.
The verdict
The World Padel Report 2026 is a federation document, so it celebrates. Much of that is earned: 40 million players, a near-even gender split among amateurs, courts going up every 36 minutes and a competitive ladder that now has a place for under-12s and over-60s alike.
But its most important finding is buried in the economics chapter. The sport runs on court bookings, not broadcast deals. That gives players a stronger claim than ever to what comes next: more coaches, fairer prices, women’s competition that matches women’s participation, and pathways like FIP Beyond that work for people with day jobs. The FIP has counted the players. Now the sport has to serve them.
Leave a Reply