How Far Behind Is Ireland? The International Padel Gap in Numbers
July 2026 · Openplay Research · Every figure sourced and linked below; Irish court counts individually verified per venue, July 2026. Free to cite with attribution and a link to this page.
Ireland's padel boom feels fast from the inside — but how does it look against the rest of Europe? We benchmarked the Republic's court stock against eight markets, from the Spanish motherland to fellow emerging markets like Germany and Poland. Two findings stand out: Ireland is already ahead of Britain per head of population — and the runway above us is still enormous.
A note on units before the table: figures below count individual courts, not venues. In Ireland's case that's 176 open courts spread across 60 operating venues in the Republic — our tracker follows 132 locations island-wide once pipeline projects are included.
Courts per 100,000 people
| Country | Padel courts | Per 100k | Court-count source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sweden | 4,220 | ~40.0 | FIP World Padel Report 2025 |
| Spain | 17,300 | ~35.5 | FIP World Padel Report 2025 |
| Denmark | 1,512 | ~25.3 | Dansk Padel Forbund via padel-court.de, Jul 2025 |
| Finland | 1,074 | ~19.2 | padel-court.de, Jul 2025 |
| Netherlands | 3,091 | ~17.3 | padel-court.de; KNLTB: 2,828 end-2024 |
| Ireland (Republic) | 176 open courts (60 venues) | ~3.4 | Openplay national court tracker, July 2026 (per-venue verified; 144 further courts in pipeline) |
| Britain | 1,553 | ~2.2 | LTA, April 2026 |
| Germany | 827 | ~1.0 | padel-court.de, Jul 2025 (+63% YoY) |
| Poland | ~60 venues (est. 150–250 courts) | ~0.5 (est.) | Padelnomics, Mar 2026 — estimate |
Populations: World Bank 2024 (data.worldbank.org); Ireland uses CSO Census 2022 (5,149,139 — data.cso.ie).
What the table says
- Ireland has already overtaken Britain per capita. The Republic's 3.4 courts per 100k beats Britain's 2.2 (LTA, April 2026) — despite Britain's decade-longer head start and 860,000 players. Ireland's boom is one of Europe's fastest relative to population.
- Against fellow emerging markets, Ireland is well ahead: more than three times Germany's density (1.0) and roughly seven times Poland's (~0.5 est.), even though Germany grew 63% last year.
- The runway is the story. Matching the Netherlands' density would require ~890 courts in the Republic. Matching Denmark: ~1,300. Matching Spain: ~1,830. Ireland has 176 courts open and 144 more in the pipeline — even completing every pipeline project gets Ireland to barely a third of Dutch density.
- Globally, the FIP counts 77,300 courts across 150 nations, with 14,355 built in 2025 alone (+15.2%) — FIP World Padel Report 2025. (Playtomic/PwC's stricter club-based count is 58,300 — Global Padel Report 2026 — methodologies differ.)
The caution from the north: Sweden's crash
Density isn't destiny. Sweden built from a few hundred courts to over 4,200 in roughly three years — then oversupply, five-fold energy costs and venture-fuelled expansion collided: an estimated 120 padel companies went bankrupt between 2022 and 2024, more than 100 facilities closed, and around 600 courts were dismantled and exported (European Business Magazine, 2025; Bloomberg, Sep 2023). Finland became the only European market to shrink in 2025 (−2.8%), and Denmark's growth has slowed to single digits as urban centres saturate (padel-court.de).
Ireland's build-out looks structurally different so far — anchored in community venues (schools, GAA clubs, golf clubs, hotels) with modest court counts per site, rather than venture-funded warehouse clusters. That model spreads risk and builds local demand first. But Sweden is the reason our tracker distinguishes open courts from pipeline announcements — growth curves are only impressive when the courts stay open.
Methodology & sources
Ireland: open, bookable courts only (individual courts, not venues; doubles and singles courts both counted; includes private members' clubs), from Openplay's verified national tracker — 132 tracked locations island-wide including pipeline; 60 open venues / 176 open courts in the Republic, each venue's court count verified against its own booking system or published information, July 2026. International court counts are the latest available as of July 2026 from the sources linked per row (FIP federation surveys, national federations, LTA, padel-court.de/padelfinder market surveys, Padelnomics) — methodologies and dates differ between countries and some tallies (e.g. Spain) vary by source; because Ireland's figure counts only verified bookable courts while some national tallies are broader, Ireland's relative position is if anything understated. Per-100k figures are indicative, not audited. Poland is a venue-based estimate and marked as such. Populations: World Bank 2024; Ireland CSO Census 2022. © Openplay Research 2026 — free to cite with attribution and a link to this page. Corrections: contact us.
Explore more: the County Density League · the Irish Padel Price Index · State of Padel in Ireland 2026.