Football rules 2026/27: the 17 Laws of the Game and what changed

The 2026/27 edition of the 17 football rules brings changes and has been in force since 1 July 2026, according to IFAB. In 2026/27, if a player deliberately delays a throw-in or a goal kick, the referee counts down 5 seconds. A substituted player has 10 seconds to leave the field. Officially, the IFAB rulebook is called the Laws of the Game.

This page puts the 17 Laws in one place. Each gets a short paragraph: what it covers, what changed in 2025/26 and 2026/27 and, where the Soccer Addicted match archive measures it, the number. The archive holds the Premier League, LaLiga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and the Brasileirão. For the detail of a single play, the paragraph points to its guide, where the site has one.

The 17 football rules from IFAB in 2026/27, in one table

The 2026/27 edition of the Laws of the Game has been in force since 1 July 2026. The text in force is the one on the IFAB website, the body that decides the changes and publishes the book. The PDFs predate 28 April 2026 and trail the website on at least 3 points. The names below are the ones in the English index of the IFAB book.

What this tells us: by the IFAB index, 5 of the 17 Laws (13, 14, 15, 16 and 17) are named after a kick or a throw. In my reading, that is where deliberate delay weighs most, and in 2026/27 the throw-in and the goal kick gained a 5-second count.

Laws 1 to 6: the field, the ball, the players, the equipment and the officials

The field and the ball open the list. Law 1 asks for a natural surface or, if the competition allows it, an artificial one; the hybrid system, which combines the two materials, also depends on the competition. Law 2 covers the size of the ball and the replacement of a defective ball. The archive's match record does not log the field or the ball, so it has no number for them.

Each team has at most 11 players under Law 3, and FIFA, the confederation or the national association sets the maximum number of substitutions, up to 5. What changed in 2026/27 is how a replaced player leaves: 10 seconds to get off the field, counted from the board or the referee's signal, except for safety or injury; if the player is slow, the substitute enters only at the first stoppage after 1 minute. See the guide to the substitution windows for how many substitution opportunities each team gets.

Law 4 covers the equipment: safety, compulsory items, colours and messages. The basics fit in one sentence: a player may not use anything dangerous. In 2026/27, accessories are allowed if they are not dangerous and are securely covered, and the list that banned all jewellery is gone from the text. The match record does not log equipment, so there is no number.

The referee has full authority to enforce the Laws of the Game, and Law 5 holds the advantage rule. It has no number of seconds: if the advantage the referee expected does not come at once or within a few seconds, the referee penalises the original offence. In 2026/27, Law 12 (disciplinary action) now says that if advantage after a denied obvious goal-scoring opportunity ends in a goal, the offender gets no disciplinary sanction. The cases are in the guide to advantage.

The other officials sit in Law 6, and VAR changed in 2026/27: the list of reviews, in Law 5, gained the red card from a clearly wrong second yellow and mistaken identity, a card for one player when the offence was another player's, from either team. The archive records at least 1 VAR event in 32.7% of games, about 1 in every 3 (from 2020/21 onward), and that is a floor: the record keeps only part of the reviews. See the video referee guide.

Laws 7 to 10: the clock, the restarts and the score

A match has 2 equal halves of 45 minutes under Law 7, and stoppage time makes up for all the time lost in each half. The list runs from substitutions and injuries to deliberate delay, VAR reviews and celebrations. The fourth official shows the minimum on a board, which the referee may increase and never reduce; the Law sets no number of minutes. In the archive, the longest series for the board is the Premier League's, and it rose. See the guide to match duration, with extra time.

What this tells us: in the Premier League, the minimum stoppage time announced in the second half rose by 2.24 minutes from 2021/22 to December 2023, and the margin of error runs from 1.92 to 2.55 (a 95% interval). The inference is short: the announced minimum went up, but the series ends in December 2023 and the record does not say why.

Kick-off and the dropped ball belong to Law 8. If play stops with the ball inside the penalty area, it goes to the goalkeeper of the defending team. Outside the area, it goes to whoever had or would have gained possession, if the referee can tell, and only otherwise to whoever touched it last. In 2026/27, "would have gained possession" now includes whoever would have taken the restart, had the ball gone out.

Under Law 9, the ball is out of play when it completely crosses the goal line or touchline and when the referee stops play. It also applies if it touches a match official and stays on the field, and possession changes, the ball goes straight into the goal or a promising attack starts. In the 2025/26 edition, a substitute, a sent-off player or a team official, among others, who touches a ball that is leaving, without intending to interfere, causes only an indirect free kick, with no card.

A goal counts when the whole ball passes over the line, between the posts and under the crossbar, with no offence by the scorer, says Law 10. The archive measures 2.703 goals per game (2.682 to 2.724) in 23,021 games from 2015/16 to 2025/26. If the competition demands a winner, the Law allows only 3 paths: the away goals rule, 2 periods of extra time of up to 15 minutes and the penalty shootout. See the tiebreaker guide, step by step.

Laws 11 to 14: offside, fouls, free kicks and the penalty

Being in an offside position is not an offence, and a player level with the second-last opponent is not even in that position. The offence comes only when the player becomes involved in active play. The archive measures 3.67 offsides per game, adding both teams (3.64 to 3.70; 22,257 games, with each league's window in the table at the end). See the full guide, with the cases.

Fouls, handball and cards all sit in Law 12. The archive measures 25.45 fouls per game, both teams added together (25.36 to 25.54), in 20,814 games from 2016/17 to 2025/26. In the handball rule, the arm limit is the line of the armpit, not the shoulder. See the handball cases.

On cards, the number of sending-off offences depends on the source: the IFAB website lists 12, 3 of them by competition option, approved only on 28 April 2026; the PDF, which predates that date, lists 9. The archive measures about 4 yellow cards and 0.213 sending-offs per game (windows in the table at the end). See the suspensions.

The free kick, in Law 13, can be direct or indirect. If an indirect kick goes straight into the opponents' goal, the result is a goal kick, not a goal; if any free kick goes straight into the kicker's own goal, the result is a corner kick. The ball is in play when it is kicked and clearly moves. See the two types, side by side.

On the penalty, Law 14 deals with the kick, the goalkeeper and the sanctions. The archive measures 0.315 penalties per game (0.308 to 0.323), in 21,921 games from 2015/16 to 2025/26, with the exclusions in the table at the end; 77.4% ended in a goal (5,353 of 6,916). Under IFAB Circular 31 (in force since 1 July 2025 and confirmed in the 2026/27 edition), if the kicker accidentally touches the ball twice, a kick that goes in is retaken, and one that does not becomes an indirect free kick.

Laws 15 to 17: throw-in, goal kick and corner kick

Deliberately delaying a throw-in costs the team the throw from 2026/27. Under Law 15, the referee whistles and counts 5 seconds with a raised hand; if the player does not take it in time, the throw passes to the opponents. The archive measures throw-ins only over a short window that differs between leagues, so the number stays out.

As for the goal kick, Law 16 awards it when the whole ball crosses the goal line after an attacker touched it last, with no goal. In 2026/27, delay gained the same 5-second count, with a heavier punishment: once the time is up, a corner kick goes to the opponents. The ball is in play when it is kicked and clearly moves.

The corner kick, in Law 17, is awarded when the ball crosses the goal line after a defender touched it last, with no goal. The last two editions added 2 reasons: the goalkeeper who holds the ball for more than 8 seconds (2025/26 edition; before it was 6, with an indirect free kick) and delay at a goal kick (2026/27 edition). The archive measures 9.89 corners per game, adding both teams (22,257 games). See the guide to taking a corner and the Olympic goal.

The number for each Law in the archive, where it exists

The archive holds 23,021 games from 2015/16 to 2025/26, measured on 5 October 2026; in 2023/24, the five European leagues enter only from August to December 2023. The match record logs goals, cards, penalties and VAR as events, and offsides, fouls and corners as statistics. For Laws 1, 2, 4, 8 and 9 it logs nothing, and for Laws 3, 13, 15 and 16 the window is short or mixes two eras. The 95% interval is the margin of error of the average.

What this tells us: goals per game is the firmest number on the page, because it matches the official Premier League count in the 9 seasons that can be checked. It is fair to infer that the goal carries the fewest caveats, while cards and VAR call for reading the table.

How to read a play with the 17 Laws in mind

When a play happens, ask first which Law it belongs to. Did the ball go out (Law 9)? Did someone delay the restart (Laws 15 and 16)? Was there a foul (Law 12), or was the player in an offside position (Law 11)? Only then open the guide for that Law, if there is one. One date is already set: according to the 2026/27 law-changes list, IFAB announced that the "Only the captain" guidelines, optional since the 2025/26 edition, become a compulsory protocol for all competitions from 1 July 2027.