Padel Hits 40 Million Players and Nearly 100,000 Courts, New FIP Report Finds

Padel has grown to roughly 40 million players worldwide, according to the FIP World Padel Report 2026, unveiled by the International Padel Federation at its General Assembly in Madrid on October 12. FIP president Luigi Carraro presented the findings in person, calling the numbers proof of a sport that keeps expanding into new markets.

The headline numbers

The federation counted 91,234 courts as of the end of August, up 20.4 percent on the year before and nearly 14,000 more than the 2025 count. Registered players, those who compete through a national federation rather than just book a court for fun, reached 1.11 million, a jump of 30.5 percent. Padel is now played in 191 countries and territories, 21 more than the last survey found. The data came from 70 national federations through the FIP National Federation Survey 2026.

Money behind the courts

For the first time, the report pairs participation numbers with a dedicated economic study. World Padel Impact, produced with the consultancy OpenEconomics, estimates the sport generates 8.6 billion euros in GDP a year from roughly 6.84 billion euros in direct spending, a multiplier of 1.26 euros of GDP for every euro spent. The study puts total economic output at 13.07 billion euros and says the industry supports more than 235,000 full-time equivalent jobs across court rental, construction, equipment and tournaments.

Growth with a few question marks

Not every estimate of padel's size lines up. A separate Global Padel Report from Playtomic and Strategy&, using a narrower definition of "player," put the figure closer to 19 million, a reminder that growth claims in a young sport often depend on how you count. The FIP says its own number, 40 million people who played at least once in the past year, comes from federation data rather than app usage, and that about 27 million of them play at least once every two weeks.

The Madrid assembly also announced that FIP membership had grown to 115 national federations after 15 joined this year, and it launched two new initiatives: the FIP World League and a dedicated Para Padel program.