Badminton Service Rules: What Makes a Serve Legal

What a correct service has to do

Law 9.1 sets the outcome first: the shuttle’s flight must be upwards from the racket, over the net, and — if nobody intercepts it — into the receiver’s service court, on or inside the boundary lines.

Then it lists eight conditions. These are the ones that decide real matches:

Law	Requirement
9.1.3	Server and receiver stand in diagonally opposite service courts, not touching the boundary lines
9.1.4	Part of both feet of server and receiver stay on the floor, stationary, until the serve is delivered
9.1.5	Shuttle released without spin; racket first hits the base of the shuttle
9.1.6	The whole shuttle is below 1.15 m from the floor when struck
9.1.7	The racket’s movement continues forwards throughout
9.1.8	The server must not miss the shuttle

The 1.15 metre rule — and the rule it replaced

This is the single biggest source of out-of-date advice about badminton, so it is worth being precise.

The current law is a fixed height: the whole shuttle must be below 1.15 metres from the court surface at the instant the racket hits it. BWF introduced it in 2018.

What it replaced was a relative measurement judged against the server’s own body — the old laws referred to the waist, defined as the lowest rib. That rule had an obvious flaw: a tall player’s legal serve height was higher than a short player’s, and umpires were asked to judge an invisible anatomical line in real time.

Fixing the height at 1.15m made the serve measurable by an instrument rather than a judgement. For context, the net is 1.524 metres at the centre — so a legal serve is struck from well below net height and must travel upwards to clear it. That is why badminton serves are hit from low and lifted, rather than smashed down like a tennis serve.

If a page tells you the serve must be below your waist, it is describing a law that no longer applies.

The receiver has to stand still too

Almost every casual player knows the server must keep their feet planted. Far fewer know that Law 9.1.4 applies the identical requirement to the receiver.

Part of both feet, of both players, must stay in contact with the court, in a stationary position, from the start of the service until it is delivered. A receiver who begins moving before the shuttle is struck can be faulted exactly as a server can.

Note “some part of both feet” — you may lift a heel, and you may pivot on the spot, but you cannot lift a foot clear or step.

Base first, and no spin

Law 9.1.5 contains two separate requirements that are easy to miss.

The server must release the shuttle without adding spin — you cannot roll it off your fingers to make it tumble unpredictably. And the racket must initially hit the base of the shuttle: the cork, not the feathers.

Both exist to keep the serve readable. A spun or feather-struck shuttle behaves erratically in its first metre of flight, which would give the server an advantage the sport has decided not to allow.

When the service actually starts and ends

The laws define both moments precisely, because everything else hangs off them.

• The start (Law 9.2): once both players are ready, the service begins at the first forward movement of the server’s racket head.
• The end (Law 9.3): the service is delivered when the racket hits the shuttle — or when the server misses it.

That first-forward-movement definition is why 9.1.7 matters: once the racket starts forwards it must keep going forwards. Pulling back for a second wind-up mid-serve is a fault, because the service has already legally begun.

There is also a neat anti-stalling clause. Under 9.1.2, once the server has completed the backward movement of the racket head, any delay in starting the service counts as undue delay — a fault. You cannot draw the racket back and then freeze to unsettle your opponent.

Finally, the server must not serve before the receiver is ready — but a receiver who attempts a return is deemed to have been ready, which stops that protection being used as an excuse afterwards.

Which court do you serve from?

This is the practical question most players actually want answered, and the rule is simpler than it looks because it depends only on your own score.

Your score	Serve from
0 or any even number	Right service court
Any odd number	Left service court

Your opponent’s score does not enter into it. Since badminton uses rally scoring — every rally scores a point for whoever wins it, regardless of who served — you keep serving as long as you keep winning rallies, alternating courts each time.

Scoring, and the cap at 29-all

A match is the best of three games. A game goes to 21 points.

Two endings are worth knowing:

• At 20-all, you must win by two clear points.
• At 29-all, the very next point wins it — the 30th point takes the game, with no two-point requirement.

That cap exists because rally scoring with an unlimited deuce could, in principle, run forever. Badminton chose to end it at 30. Volleyball faces exactly the same problem and makes the opposite choice: a set tied at 24-24 simply continues until someone leads by two, with no upper limit at all.

Compared with table tennis

Two racket sports, both with unusually detailed service laws, and they resolve the same problems in opposite directions.

	Badminton	Table tennis
Diagonal serve in singles?	Required	Not required
Height rule	Shuttle below 1.15 m	Ball tossed at least 16 cm upwards
What must stay still	Both players’ feet	The server’s free hand before release
Direction of strike	Upwards, over the net	Downwards onto own court first

Badminton constrains how high you may hit from; table tennis constrains how high you must throw to. Badminton demands a diagonal; table tennis demands one only in doubles. Both are trying to stop the server hiding information — badminton by keeping the contact low and visible, table tennis by keeping the ball unhidden.

More breakdowns of how sports actually work are in rules and techniques, and our research and sourcing policy explains why we quote the governing body’s law text rather than a coaching summary — this page is a good example of why that matters.