Key takeaways
- Identify the phase first: open play, the tackle, the ruck, the maul, the scrum and the lineout each have their own offside rule, and at tackles, rucks, mauls and scrums the try line is the furthest back the line can go.
- Remember that in open play standing offside is not itself the offence; interfering with play, moving towards the ball or loitering is what gets penalised, while at a ruck, maul or set piece you must get back behind the line at once.
- When a team-mate kicks, retreat or wait for an onside chaser to pass you: since July 2024 an opponent running five metres or passing no longer puts you back onside in open play.
- At a ruck, the offside lines disappear the instant the ball leaves it or the player playing it away lifts it, which is the moment a defence may legally go.
- Expect a penalty rather than a scrum for most offside offences, and for offside at a phase the mark is the offending team's own offside line.
Offside in rugby union is not one rule but a family of them. In open play, you are offside if you are in front of a team-mate who is carrying the ball or who last played it. Once a tackle, ruck, maul, scrum or lineout forms, the laws draw a separate offside line for each team, running across the field parallel to the try lines, and you must stay behind your own. In open play, standing offside is not the offence; taking part is. At a breakdown or set piece the laws are stricter, and a player caught in front must get back behind the line straight away.
The open-play rule is the one most newcomers miss. A player who is offside in open play can be on the field, in plain sight, even close to the ball, and the referee will leave them alone until they interfere. What follows sets out where each line sits under World Rugby's current laws, as published on its laws site in October 2026, how players get back onside, and why a game built on contesting the ball needs so many definitions.
The offside line for each phase
| Phase | Your offside line | Law |
|---|---|---|
| Open play | The team-mate who has the ball or last played it; after a team-mate's kick, also the "10-metre law" | 10.1, 10.4c |
| Tackle | Through the hindmost point of any player in the tackle or on their feet over the ball, once someone is on their feet over it | 14.10 |
| Ruck | Through the hindmost point of any player in the ruck | 15.4 |
| Maul | Through the hindmost foot of the maul's players nearest your own try line | 16.4 |
| Scrum | Five metres behind your team's hindmost foot for everyone not in it; scrum-halves have their own positions | 19.28–19.31 |
| Lineout | The mark of touch for players in the lineout until the throw touches a player or the ground, then a line through the ball; ten metres back for everyone else | 18.32, 18.35 |
"Hindmost" in the laws means nearest a team's own try line, so each team measures its line from its own end of the contest. At tackles, rucks, mauls and scrums, if the line would fall on or behind a team's try line, that try line becomes the offside line.
Why rugby needs six lines when football needs one
Association football has a single test. Under Law 11 of the IFAB Laws of the Game (2026/27), a player is in an offside position when in the opponents' half and nearer their goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent, judged at the moment a team-mate plays the ball. Rugby borrows only one idea from that, and it is the important one: in open play, as in football, the position on its own is not an offence.
| Rugby union | Association football | |
|---|---|---|
| Measured against | Your own team-mates and the phase of play | The ball and the second-last opponent |
| Where it applies | Anywhere on the field | Only in the opponents' half |
| When it is judged | Continuously, phase by phase | When a team-mate plays the ball |
| Being in position | In open play, not an offence until you interfere; at a ruck, maul or set piece, you must retire at once | Not an offence until active involvement |
| Usual sanction | Penalty, or a scrum at the non-offending team's choice in open play | Indirect free kick |
The reason for the difference is the contest. Rugby restarts and recycles possession through physical contests on and around the ball: tackles, rucks, mauls, scrums and lineouts. A fair contest needs both teams to arrive from behind it, and a fair attack needs space beyond it that defenders cannot occupy early. Each phase therefore gets a line that keeps the non-participants back until the contest is over. For the football version in full, see how the offside rule works.
Open play: in front of the ball, out of the game
Law 10.1 lists what an offside player must not do: play the ball, tackle the ball-carrier, prevent the opposition from playing as they wish, or loiter in an offside position. Loitering was written into the law on 1 July 2024. World Rugby's definition is blunt about it: a loiterer who stops the opposition playing as they wish is taking part, and "must not benefit from being put onside by the opposing team's action".
An offside player can be penalised for making no effort to retreat and then interfering, or for moving towards the ball (Law 10.4). A player who simply cannot avoid being touched by the ball or a team-mate carrying it is accidentally offside, and play only stops if the offending team gains an advantage, with a scrum as the sanction (Law 10.5).
Getting back onside
There are two routes. A player can put themselves onside by moving behind the team-mate who last played the ball, or behind any onside team-mate (Law 10.6). Or something can happen that releases them (Law 10.7):
- an onside team-mate runs past them;
- an opponent kicks the ball, or deliberately touches it without gaining possession;
- the ball goes into touch, provided the player had been obeying the law until then.
The 2024 change removed two of the old releases. Before 1 July 2024, an opponent carrying the ball five metres or passing it also put offside players back onside. That allowed players to wait in the middle of the field during an exchange of kicks. Now they have to work their way back.
The 10-metre law: when a team-mate kicks
Kicks get a stricter rule. A player in front of a team-mate who kicks must retire immediately behind an onside team-mate, or behind an imaginary line across the field ten metres from where the ball lands or is caught (Law 10.4c). If several players are guilty, the one closest to where the ball comes down is the one penalised. And the opposition cannot release them: apart from a charge down, nothing an opponent does puts a player offside under this law back onside (Law 10.8).
A worked example. Blue's fly-half kicks a high ball from halfway, and Red's full-back catches it 40 metres downfield.
| Blue player when the ball is kicked | Status | What they must do |
|---|---|---|
| Wing, 35 m downfield, 5 m from the catch | Offside and inside ten metres | Retreat behind the 10-metre line immediately, or be penalised |
| Centre, 15 m downfield, well away from the catch | Offside in open play | Must not advance or interfere until the kicker or an onside chaser runs past, or Red kicks |
| Flanker, level with the kicker | Onside | Free to chase and tackle |
If Red's full-back now runs five metres or passes, the centre is still offside. Under the law before 1 July 2024, that would have put him back in the game.
The breakdown and the set pieces
Tackle and ruck
A tackle creates offside lines as soon as at least one player is on their feet over the ball on the ground (Law 14.10), and players arriving at it must stay on or behind theirs (Law 14.8). When players from each side bind over the ball, the ruck's lines take over: through the hindmost point of anyone in the ruck. An arriving player must join from behind that line, alongside but not in front of the hindmost player, or retire behind it straight away (Laws 15.5 to 15.8).
The lines end with the ruck, and the ruck ends when the ball leaves it, or when the player playing it away has lifted it from the ground (Law 15.19). That is the legal starting gun for a defensive line.
Maul
At a maul the line runs through the hindmost foot of the players in it, and players joining must bind onto the hindmost player from an onside position (Laws 16.4 to 16.7). World Rugby's Law Application Guideline for the maul, applicable to new competitions from 1 June 2026, adds a practical warning for mauls formed at a lineout: any player who moves past the ball while the maul is forming, joins ahead of the ball, or stays ahead of the hindmost foot is offside.
Scrum
Players bound into the scrum are onside for its duration. Everyone else who is not taking part must stay at least five metres behind their team's hindmost foot, or behind their try line if that is nearer (Laws 19.31 and 19.32). The scrum-half without the ball has three options: stay near the scrum with both feet no further forward than the centre line of the tunnel, retire to the offside line at the team's hindmost foot, or retire five metres behind it. The first of those arrived as a global law trial from 1 January 2025, to protect the scrum-half with the ball, and the laws site still marks it as a trial. The lines vanish the moment the scrum ends (Law 19.33).
Lineout
Players in the lineout are onside while they stay on their side of the mark of touch. Until the ball is thrown in and touches a player or the ground, the mark of touch is their offside line; after that, it is a line through the ball (Law 18.32). Everyone else must stand at least ten metres back from the mark of touch, or behind their try line if nearer. Once a team-mate has thrown the ball in, those players may move up, and their opponents may then do the same (Laws 18.35 and 18.36).
Still offside after the phase ends
Being caught offside at a ruck, maul, scrum or lineout does not end when the phase does. The player stays offside until they retire behind the line, or an opponent carries the ball five metres or kicks it (Laws 10.9 and 10.10). Notice the five metres survives here, even though it no longer applies in open play.
What an offside costs
In open play, the non-offending team chooses between a penalty where the offence happened and a scrum where the offending team last played the ball (Law 10.4). Offside at a phase is a penalty, and the mark is at the offending team's own offside line (Law 20.1). A penalty means three points if it is within kicking range, or a kick to touch with the throw-in, so an offside hands the opposition the same options as any other penalty.
Discipline is part of defence
Every offside line is also a starting line. A defence cannot set off until the ball is out of the ruck or the scrum ends, so the space an attack gets is decided by how quickly defenders leave the line once it is legal to go, and how often they leave it too early. That makes defence a collective discipline as much as a collection of tackles.
Defence is one of the four qualities, alongside scrummaging, kicking and speed, that the position roles in our rugby union draft and GM game reward building around. 24-0 Rugby Draft Pro League follows union scoring and position roles; this article describes the real laws, not anything the game shows on screen.
For who stands where, rugby positions by number covers the scrum-half and the back row, the players who live closest to these lines, and forwards and backs explains how the two units divide the work. Penalty values are in how rugby scoring works, and the rugby hub collects the rest of the laws series. More sports explainers sit under sports GM.
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
What does offside mean in rugby union?
Where is the offside line at a ruck?
What is the 10-metre law in rugby?
How does a player get back onside in rugby?
How is rugby offside different from soccer offside?
Sources
- Law 10: Offside and onside in open play (opens in a new tab)World Rugby — accessed
- Law 14: Tackle (opens in a new tab)World Rugby — accessed
- Law 15: Ruck (opens in a new tab)World Rugby — accessed
- Law 16: Maul (opens in a new tab)World Rugby — accessed
- Law 18: Touch, quick throw and lineout (opens in a new tab)World Rugby — accessed
- Law 19: Scrum (opens in a new tab)World Rugby — accessed
- Law 20: Penalty and free-kick (opens in a new tab)World Rugby — accessed
- Law changes - 1 July 2024 (opens in a new tab)World Rugby — accessed
- Global Law Trials - 1 January 2025 (opens in a new tab)World Rugby — accessed
- Law Application Guideline: Maul - June 2026 (opens in a new tab)World Rugby — accessed
- Laws of the Game: Definitions (opens in a new tab)World Rugby — accessed
- Law 11 - Offside (Laws of the Game 2026/27) (opens in a new tab)The International Football Association Board (IFAB) — accessed
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