What is the offside rule in football, explained simply

A player is offside if any part of his head, body or feet is in the opponents' half and nearer to the opponents' goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent at the moment the ball is played by a teammate, and he then becomes involved in active play. Being in an offside position is not an offence by itself, and there is no offside at all if the ball comes directly from a goal kick, a throw-in or a corner kick. The law is unchanged for 2026/27, despite a trial of a stricter "Wenger offside" rule in the Canadian Premier League whose results are due to IFAB.

Offside position vs offside offence

The law draws a sharp line between position and offence. A player is in an offside position if two things are true at the moment a teammate plays the ball: any part of his head, body or feet is in the opponents' half (the halfway line itself does not count), and any part of his head, body or feet is nearer to the opponents' goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent.

The hands and arms are not part of the equation. For offside purposes, the upper boundary of the arm is a line level with the bottom of the armpit, so a striker who is played through with only his arm ahead of the defender is onside.

A player is not in an offside position if he is level with the second-last opponent, level with the last two opponents, or in his own half. The second-last opponent is normally the last defender, because the last opponent is usually the goalkeeper, but the law does not require the last opponent to be the keeper. A player left one-on-one with the goalkeeper with a defender behind him is judged against that defender and the keeper, both of them.

When the offence is committed

An offside position only becomes an offence when the player gets involved in active play. There are three ways:

• Interfering with play: playing or touching the ball after it is passed or touched by a teammate.
• Interfering with an opponent: preventing an opponent from playing the ball by clearly obstructing his line of vision, challenging him for the ball, clearly attempting to play a ball that is close when that attempt impacts on him, or making an obvious action that clearly affects his ability to play the ball.
• Gaining an advantage: playing a ball that rebounds or deflects off the post, the crossbar or an opponent.

The timing is everything. Offside is judged at the moment the ball is played or touched by the teammate, not when the player receives it. That means a player can be behind the defence and clearly offside at the moment of the pass, run onto the ball, and still be onside if the pass was played before he crossed the line of the second-last opponent. It also means the position resets every time the ball is played by a different player, so a second pass can rescue a player who was offside for the first.

The three exceptions

There is no offside offence if the ball comes directly from a goal kick, a throw-in or a corner kick. All three are set-piece restarts where the offside law simply does not apply to the first touch, which is why a throw-in can be hurled into the six-yard box at a striker standing between the keeper and the goal line with no flag, and why a goal kick can be played directly to a striker standing behind the defence.

A free kick is not an exception. A player who is in an offside position at the moment a direct or indirect free kick is taken can be penalised, and the indirect free kick is also the sanction for the offence itself: offside is punished with an indirect free kick to the defending team from where the offence happened.

Why the law keeps changing

The offside law has been tightened and loosened repeatedly. The 1925 change cut the requirement from three opponents to two, which produced a goal boom that the game has been managing ever since. In 1990, IFAB declared that a player level with the second-last defender is onside, giving the benefit of the doubt to the attacker. In 2005 the arms were excluded from the offside-position definition, and in 2021 the upper boundary of the arm was pinned to the bottom of the armpit. The 2018 clarification that offside is judged on the first point of contact with the ball, and the 2023 clarification that deliberate play now turns on ball control rather than intent, were both attempts to make a famously subjective call more consistent.

For 2026/27 the law is unchanged. The "Wenger offside" proposal, which would call offside only when the attacker's entire body is beyond the second-last opponent, is being trialled in the Canadian Premier League rather than adopted, and the results go to IFAB at the end of the year. Nothing about the offside law in the Premier League changes for the 2026/27 season.

Where it connects to the rest of the game

Offside is the law most shaped by technology. The Premier League introduced semi-automated offside technology in April 2025, which uses tracking data to draw the lines that used to be drawn by hand, and VAR reviews goals that hinge on an offside decision. The technology does not change what offside is, it changes how quickly and consistently the position is measured. For how that review process works, see our guide to VAR in the Premier League.

The offside law also shapes how points are won, which is why our FPL scoring guide matters to anyone building a squad around strikers who live on the last shoulder. Fixture planning, meanwhile, runs on the same data that produces those calls, tracked on our fixtures page and our live match centre.

FAQ

Is it offside if a player is level with the defender? No. A player who is level with the second-last opponent or the last two opponents is not in an offside position. The 1990 change gave the attacker the benefit of the doubt in level situations.

Is there offside from a throw-in? No. The ball coming directly from a throw-in cannot produce an offside offence, and the same applies to goal kicks and corner kicks.

Do hands count for offside? No. Only the head, body and feet count, and the upper boundary of the arm is level with the bottom of the armpit.

Can a player in an offside position be given a yellow card? Not for the offside itself. Offside is punished with an indirect free kick to the defending team, and no card is shown for the position or the offence alone.

Key takeaways

• Offside position requires part of the head, body or feet to be nearer the opponents' goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent, in the opponents' half, at the moment the ball is played.
• The offence only exists when the player becomes involved in active play: interfering with play, interfering with an opponent, or gaining an advantage from a rebound.
• There is no offside from a goal kick, throw-in or corner kick, but a free kick is fully subject to the law.
• The law is unchanged for 2026/27; the "Wenger offside" proposal is only a Canadian Premier League trial, with results due to IFAB.
• Offside is judged at the moment the ball is played by a teammate, so the position resets every time a different player touches it.