Free Beach Volleyball scoreboard

Why score Beach Volleyball with ScoreZen

• ✓One-tap scoring, built for Beach Volleyball
• ✓Share the live score by QR code or link
• ✓Free for spectators — no app to install to watch
• ✓Keeps working if the connection drops
• ✓34 sports, tournaments and standings included

How Beach Volleyball scoring works

A point is scored on every rally: the team that wins the rally scores, whether or not it served. If the receiving team wins the rally, it scores and gains the right to serve. The serving player alternates between the two partners each time the team regains the serve.

Match format

Match is best of 3 sets. Sets 1 and 2 are played to 21 points (with a 2-point lead); the deciding 3rd set is played to 15 points (with a 2-point lead). Each team gets one 30-second timeout per set.

How to win

The match is won by the first team to win 2 sets. A set is won with at least a 2-point lead.

Recommended ScoreZen setup

In ScoreZen, choose a set-based scoring mode ("first to X points, win by 2"). Official preset: 3 sets, 21/21/15 points; Casual preset: 1 set to 15 or 21 as players prefer. Set the points target per set and the number of winning sets to 2.

How the count actually works on sand

Rally scoring: a completed rally gives a point to someone, whoever served. A set goes to 21 points and you must lead by two. At 20-20 play continues until a team is two clear: 22-20, 23-21, with no ceiling in the FIVB rules. Two sets win the match, and at one set all the deciding third set is played to 15, still with two clear points. Three cases end a rally with no point at all, and the rally is simply replayed: a double fault (both teams at fault simultaneously), a serious accident while the ball is in play, and any external interference.

The count people forget is the change of ends: every 7 points in sets 1 and 2, every 5 in the deciding set, and the trigger is the total of points played by both teams, not one team's score. You switch at 7, 14, 21, 28, then at 5, 10, 15, 20 in the third. 12-9 is 21 points played, so it is a switch. If a switch was missed, the teams change as soon as the error is noticed, and the score at that moment stays exactly as it is.

Two players a side, so the servers alternate. Serving team wins the rally, the same player serves again; receiving team wins, it takes the point and the serve, and the player who did not serve last time for that team serves now. The order is fixed for the whole set by the captain immediately after the toss and recorded on the score sheet, and serving out of order costs a point and the serve. Placement, on the other hand, you never track: the players position themselves freely, there are no determined positions on the court and no positional fault.

(FIVB, Official Beach Volleyball Rules 2025-2028, rules 6.1.2.2, 6.1.3, 6.2, 6.3, 7.4, 7.5, 7.6, 7.7, 12.2, 17.1.1, 17.2 and 18.2. Current edition published in English and Spanish; the last French edition published by the FIVB covers 2021-2024.)

What the rulebook fixes, and what it leaves to the tournament

A team is composed exclusively of two players, and only the two recorded on the score sheet may take part in the match. There are no substitutions at all. So there is nothing to record for a substitution and no libero line: if a player cannot continue, the team is declared incomplete and loses the set or the match, the opponent is given the points, or the points and the sets, it needs to close it, and the incomplete team keeps the points and sets it had already won.

One time-out per set per team, 30 seconds each. In FIVB, World and Official Competitions only, sets 1 and 2 add an automatic 30-second technical time-out when the sum of the points scored by the two teams equals 21; there is none in the deciding set. Intervals between sets last one minute, and a new toss is conducted before the deciding set, so the sides and the service order are decided again from scratch.

Some results are written in advance. A team that refuses to play after being summoned, or that does not appear on the playing court on time, is declared in default: 0-2 for the match, recorded as 0-21 and 0-21. An injured or ill player gets a maximum of five minutes of recovery, and if the player does not come back at the end of that time the team is declared incomplete. Interruptions not exceeding four hours in total, the match resumes with the score acquired; beyond four hours, the whole match is replayed. The sheet also carries the delays: 12 seconds maximum from the end of a rally to the whistle for service, first delay in the match a delay warning, second and beyond a delay penalty, meaning a point and the service to the opponent.

One thing the book hands back to the organiser: in FIVB, World and Official Competitions running a pool-play format, the default and incomplete-team rule itself may be modified by the Specific Competition Regulations issued by the FIVB. So read the competition's own regulations before you decide what a walkover is worth.

(FIVB, Official Beach Volleyball Rules 2025-2028, rules 4.1, 6.4, 15.1, 15.2.2, 15.4, 16.1.3, 16.2, 17.1.2, 17.3, 18.1 and 7.1.)

Sunday tournament, national circuit, World Tour

The court is the constant: 16 by 8 metres, with no centre line, from a beach tournament in July to an Olympic final. The score is not. FIVB plays 21, 21 and 15 with two clear points, but the French federation's own regulations for its national circuit, the France Beach Volley Series, allow matches in two winning sets of 15 with a deciding set to 11, still two clear points, with the change of ends every 5; outside the knockout stage they also allow a single set of 30 points, and in series 2-250 and 3 a single set of 15 or 21. So the very first thing to check on Sunday is which format the tournament regulations impose.

The net is where the category shows: 2.43 m for men, 2.24 m for women, and the rulebook's note allows 2.24 m for the 16-and-under age group of both sexes, 2.12 m for 14-and-under and 2.00 m for 12-and-under. None of that touches the score, but it tells you which age group a silent draw sheet is hiding.

What really changes is the table. The refereeing team is the 1st referee, the 2nd referee, a challenge referee and a reserve referee where applicable, the scorer, and four (or two) line judges; the assistant scorer becomes compulsory only in FIVB, World and Official Competitions, and it is that assistant who displays a sign numbered 1 or 2 to show which of the two players is due to serve. Everything the book flags "For FIVB, World and Official Competitions", the automatic technical time-out included, simply does not exist at a club tournament. There, all of it is one person with a pen, which is why the server and the change of ends are the two things that slip.

There is also a 4 vs 4 version with its own FIVB rulebook: same 16 by 8 court, same 21, 21 and 15, but four players a side, up to six on the score sheet, substitutions, and shirts numbered 1 to 6. Its change of ends is not the 2 vs 2 one either: in sets 1 and 2 the teams switch once the leading team reaches 11 points, and 8 in the deciding set. Clubs also run americano days on the same sand, pairs changing every round, ranking individual. Decide which one you are running before the first serve.

(FIVB, Official Beach Volleyball Rules 2025-2028, rules 1.1.1, 1.3.2, 2.1, 15.4.2, 21.1, 26 and 27.2.2.1; FIVB, Official Beach Volleyball Rules (Version 4 vs 4) 2023-2024, rules 1.1.1, 4.1.1, 4.3.3, 6.2, 6.3 and 18.2.2; FFVB, Règlement particulier des épreuves du Circuit National, France Beach Volley Series 2025-2026, article 45.)

What ScoreZen changes for beach volleyball

You score from your phone, one thumb, with the set score and the points of the current set on the same screen. The set closes only at 21 with two clear points and there is no ceiling, so a 26-24 is counted exactly as the book has it. Each team gets its one time-out per set, and that counter resets by itself when the set changes, so nobody has to remember. On sand that matters: no sheet flapping in the wind, no flip board to walk around, nothing to shout from one court to the next.

And if your competition does not play the FIVB format, you set yours when you create the match: points per set, deciding-set target, number of winning sets and the two-clear-points rule are all adjustable, so two sets of 15 with a deciding set to 11, or a single set of 30, are ordinary matches for ScoreZen too.

Then you share the match with a link, or a QR code taped to the club hut. One QR code covers the whole tournament, not one per court: players scan it, pick their own match and score it themselves while you watch every court from the table. Spectators are free, unlimited and never need an account.

For a weekend, ScoreZen runs knockout, championship, pools with a bracket, Swiss system, best-of-3 and best-of-5 series, and rotating teams for americano, mexicano and mêlée days with an individual ranking. Signal on a beach is the honest problem: open the match while you still have a bar, and it keeps counting without network, then resyncs when the signal comes back.

Around the match: TV mode on a laptop at the clubhouse, the transparent overlay for OBS, the iframe widget for the club site, an ICS feed for calendars, CSV export of the matches, a public read-only API with no key, the Replay summary and the Story image to share, and the A4 sheet if your competition still wants paper.

34 sports, 25 languages. Three trial matches are free for life; after that, one payment of €1.99unlocks ScoreZen for life. Clubs that want the club side pay €4.99, €9.99or €29.99a month.

Frequently asked questions