Table Tennis Serving Rules: The Legal Serve

A legal table tennis serve, under the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) rules, begins with the ball sitting on an open, flat palm above the table surface and behind the end line, from where the server tosses it straight up at least 16 cm (about 6 inches) with no spin. The server then strikes the falling ball so it bounces once on their own side of the table and then travels over or around the net to bounce on the opponent’s side, keeping the ball visible to the receiver the entire time.

Those requirements exist to stop servers from disguising the ball or gaining an unfair spin advantage, and they are the part of the game most casual players get wrong. Here is exactly what makes a serve legal, what counts as a fault, and how service alternates during a game.

The anatomy of a legal serve

Break the serve into its stages and the rules become easy to follow:

• The start: the ball rests freely on the open, flat palm of your stationary free hand. It must be above the level of the playing surface and behind your end line, never over the table.
• The toss: you throw the ball near-vertically, at least 16 cm high, without imparting spin. That 6-inch minimum is what prevents a quick, disguised flick straight off the palm.
• The strike: as the ball descends, you hit it so it first touches your own half of the table, then clears the net and lands in your opponent’s half.
• Visibility: from the moment the ball leaves your palm, it must be visible to the receiver. You cannot screen it with your free arm, hand or any part of your body.

Get all four right and the serve is legal, regardless of how much spin you add with the paddle at contact. The rules restrict the toss and the concealment, not the spin you generate on the strike itself.

Serving requirements at a glance

Requirement	Rule
Ball placement	On an open, flat palm, above the table, behind the end line
Toss height	At least 16 cm (~6 inches), near-vertical, no spin
Contact point	Behind the end line and above table level
First bounce	On the server’s own half
Second bounce	On the receiver’s half (over or around the net)
Visibility	Ball visible to the receiver at all times
Net clip	A “let” — the serve is replayed

What counts as an illegal serve

A serve is a fault, giving the point straight to your opponent, if you break any of the requirements above. The most common illegal serves are a toss that is too low or clearly not vertical, adding spin to the toss itself, striking the ball in front of the end line or below the table, and, above all, hiding the ball with the hand or arm at the moment of contact. The hidden serve is heavily policed at high levels precisely because concealing the point of contact makes the spin impossible to read.

One outcome is not a fault: if a legal serve clips the top of the net but still bounces correctly on the receiver’s side, it is a let, and the point is simply replayed with no penalty.

How the serve alternates

Table tennis has no first-and-second-serve system like tennis. Instead, each player serves for two consecutive points, then the serve passes to the opponent, and this alternation continues throughout the game. The one exception is the deuce situation: once the score reaches 10–10, the serve switches after every single point until one player leads by two.

Games are played to 11 points, win by two, and points are scored on every rally no matter who served, so a strong, legal, well-disguised serve is a genuine weapon. If you want to see how a different racket sport handles its serve, our guide to how to serve in tennis is a useful contrast, tennis allows two attempts and a very different toss.

Why the rules are so strict

The serving laws are all about fairness of information. A high, visible toss guarantees the receiver can see the ball’s speed and the paddle’s contact, which is the only way to read the incoming spin. Remove the toss-height or visibility rules and elite servers could win points outright with undetectable serves, which would ruin the rallies that make the sport worth watching. The same logic, standardizing conditions so skill decides the point, runs through the whole game, and it is why table tennis has produced such a deep lineage of specialists, as our feature on the greatest table tennis players shows. Newcomers crossing over from other paddle sports will find the serve philosophy quite different from, say, the underhand rule in our kitchen in pickleball explainer.

The short version: a legal table tennis serve means an open palm behind the end line, a vertical toss of at least 16 cm with no spin, a strike that bounces once on each side, and a ball kept fully visible to the receiver, with service changing every two points (every point at 10–10) and a net-clip serve replayed as a let.