Indonesia's 2026 Padel Bubble: Which Side Is Actually Bursting?
The number of padel courts in Indonesia surged by 295%, reaching 947 courts in 2025. At the same time, free promotions, declining venue occupancy, taxes, and permit restrictions have increased pressure, particularly on court operators.
There is currently no independent measurement of the number of padel players in Indonesia. Estimates of 20,000 players and 76% court occupancy appear inconsistent with the capacity of 947 courts, meaning the current level of demand has yet to be independently verified.
Sweden's experience shows that market corrections can significantly affect court operators when court expansion outpaces player growth. However, such corrections do not necessarily indicate a decline in public interest in padel as a sport.
The number of padel courts in Indonesia rose 295 percent in a single year. Throughout 2026, various signs of strain emerged: one court was sold for IDR 199 million, the Jakarta Provincial Government halted the issuance of permits for new courts in residential zones, new clubs began offering free trials, and some operators started reporting falling occupancy. These developments have fueled the assumption that the padel bubble is starting to burst.
But that conclusion is still premature. To declare that a bubble has burst, we first need to know which variable was overinflated to begin with. In Indonesia's padel industry, that's exactly where the problem lies. Data on the number of courts, transactions, and capacity is reasonably complete. Data on how many people are actually playing padel, on the other hand, has never been measured independently.
This article looks at why almost every sign of strain that emerged throughout 2026 comes from the supply side, while the state of demand still can't be confirmed.
Court Expansion Has Moved Extremely Fast
Four years ago, Indonesia had just 15 padel courts. According to the Indonesia Padel Report 2025, compiled by Core & Court together with Growell, that number reached 947 units in 2025, up 295 percent from 240 units the year before. The same report also projected an additional 1,580 courts throughout 2026 (Core & Court & Growell, 2025).
Business growth is also visible on the revenue side. According to the Global Padel Report 2025, compiled by Playtomic together with PwC Strategy&, gross revenue per padel court in Indonesia rose from €2,300 per month in 2023 to €6,300 per month in 2024. Over the same period, Spain — the world's most mature padel market — recorded growth of only 16 percent (Playtomic & PwC Strategy&, 2025).
All of these figures describe the supply side. The number of courts, rental rates, and revenue per court are easy to track because they're all part of day-to-day operations. Padel in Indonesia has also grown alongside digital booking platforms, so every operating court is immediately recorded along with its rental price and schedule.
The number of players, by contrast, isn't automatically recorded. A single booking only logs one transaction, not the four people actually playing. When a community books a court every Saturday, the system only records the account that made the booking, not every community member who shows up.
As a result, when investors assess the prospects of Indonesia's padel market, almost all the available data comes from the supply side. We know reasonably well how many courts have been built and how much revenue they generate, but we still don't know for certain how many people are actually playing padel.
The Signals That Make the Padel Bubble Look Like It's Bursting
Several events throughout 2025 and 2026 have led many people to conclude that the padel business is entering a correction phase. But each of these signals needs to be examined in context.
According to Tempo, new padel clubs have been aggressively offering free trials to attract players. But as the number of courts has grown, players have instead used these promotions to hop between venues and play for free (Tempo, 2025). This phenomenon points to intensifying competition among operators, not a decline in public interest in playing padel.
The same report also noted falling occupancy at a number of venues. One business operator said the growing number of courts has given players more location options, which has pushed down the fill rate at each individual venue. The operator also suspected the drop between November and December was more a matter of the year-end holiday season. In other words, the available data only shows a decline in occupancy per venue. There's no evidence yet that the total number of padel players is also declining.
Pressure has also come from the cost side. Since mid-2025, padel court rentals in Jakarta have become subject to the Specific Goods and Services Tax, at a rate of 10 percent. Citing Detik, the manager of Padel Pro Indonesia in Kemang said the policy hasn't had a significant impact, since the tax was already built into the rental price from the start (Detik, 2025). Even so, this has narrowed operators' room to lower prices.
Another factor stems from regulation. On February 24, 2026, the Jakarta Provincial Government halted the issuance of building permits for new padel courts in residential zones and restricted the operating hours of courts in residential areas to 8:00 PM WIB. Of the 397 padel courts in Jakarta as of February 23, 2026, 185 did not yet hold a Building Approval Certificate (Tempo, 2026). This policy was driven by resident complaints about noise, not because the government judged the padel market to be saturated. There's also no comparative data available on permit-compliance rates for other commercial business categories in Jakarta, so the figure of 185 out of 397 can't yet be treated as something unique to the padel industry.
The case of a court sold for IDR 199 million also needs to be kept in proportion. According to the report that first covered it, there's no official data showing a decline in the number of padel players in Indonesia. In fact, several industry players see the current situation as a normalization phase following a surge in popularity in previous years (Suara, 2026).
Taken together, all of these indicators form a fairly clear pattern. Every one of them describes pressure on the operator side: rising competition, venue occupancy, operating costs, permitting, and asset sales. Not a single indicator directly measures whether the number of people playing padel is also declining.
Sweden Shows What a Bursting Padel Bubble Actually Looks Like
Sweden is often cited as an example because its cycle of growth and correction has already played out. Because of this, its case can help clarify whether what's actually collapsing is interest in playing padel, or the business of running the courts.
According to European Business Magazine, between 2019 and 2022 the number of padel courts in Sweden rose from a few hundred to more than 4,200 within 36 months. By the end of 2024, more than 100 facilities had closed and 90 padel companies had filed for bankruptcy, with total capital losses approaching €500 million. Operator We Are Padel also closed 50 of its 63 clubs (European Business Magazine, 2026).
The number of players, however, didn't collapse along with it. According to International Padel Federation data cited in the report, more than 600,000 Swedes were still playing padel in early 2024. That figure makes Sweden the country with the second-highest per capita padel participation rate in Europe, after Spain.
This means what came under pressure was the court-management business, not the sport itself. European Business Magazine concluded the situation was driven by infrastructure expansion that grew faster than the player base. A surge in player numbers was read as a permanent need for new courts, when in fact the growth rate of demand eventually slowed.
Even so, Sweden's experience can't simply be equated with Indonesia's.
First, electricity prices in southern Sweden averaged nearly five times what they were before 2020. This drove up the cost of heating and lighting indoor venues so sharply that it became unsustainable (Padel Tonic, 2025). Indonesia doesn't face heating costs, and a portion of its padel courts operate outdoors.
Second, about 5.7 percent of Sweden's population plays padel. If that same participation rate were applied to Indonesia, the number of players would approach 16 million. In terms of population size, that potential exists. According to BPS in its 2024 Socio-Cultural Statistics, 37.16 percent of the population aged five and older exercised within the week before the survey (BPS, 2025). The challenge isn't population size — it's how many people are willing to choose padel over other sports that cost less.
In other words, Sweden's experience is better read as a warning about the risk of court expansion outpacing player-base growth. This case doesn't automatically mean Indonesia will experience the same pattern.
Indonesia's Demand Side Still Can't Be Measured
To find out whether Indonesia is following Sweden's pattern, there's one thing we need to look at: whether the number of padel players is still growing or has started to decline. The problem is, the available data can't yet answer that question.
The Indonesia Padel Report 2025 estimates Indonesia's padel player base at around 20,000 people. The same report also records a market occupancy rate of 76 percent.
At first glance, both figures seem reasonable. But when you run them together, an inconsistency shows up.
Padel is always played by four people. That means every hour of court time booked represents four player-sessions. With 947 courts operating roughly 10 hours a day at 76 percent occupancy, the national number of player-sessions comes out to around 28,000 per day.
A base of 20,000 players could only produce that volume if every single one of them played more than once a day, every day, without a break. That assumption is hard to imagine holding true in practice. At a more realistic playing frequency — say, twice a week — that volume would actually require around 100,000 active players.
This calculation is our own derived estimate, based on assumptions about operating hours and playing frequency that are still open to debate. Even so, the gap between the two scenarios comes out to roughly fivefold. Adjusting the assumptions isn't enough to close a gap that size.
This means at least one of the two figures needs to be reconsidered. If 76 percent occupancy reflects the real situation, the number of padel players in Indonesia is likely far higher than 20,000. Conversely, if the player-base estimate is closer to reality, then the market's occupancy rate is likely lower than reported.
One clue points toward the second possibility. The Indonesia Padel Report 2025 lists occupancy rates of around 76–77 percent across seven markets with very different characteristics, even though court density varies from region to region. This kind of uniformity doesn't automatically mean the figures are wrong. But it does raise the possibility that the occupancy number is the output of a model-based estimate, rather than a direct on-the-ground measurement.
This finding doesn't show that Indonesia's padel market is weakening. The point is actually more fundamental: to date, there's no independent data that can confirm how many people are actually playing padel in Indonesia. Without a published player survey or membership data, the state of the demand side still can't be verified.
What Can Still Be Read From the Demand Side
There's still no data that can confirm how many people play padel in Indonesia. Even so, a few behavioral indicators can still offer a picture of the state of demand. So far, these indicators haven't shown that interest in playing padel is declining.
One of them is the player retention rate. The Global Padel Report 2025 records player retention in the fastest-growing markets, including Indonesia, at 92 percent (Playtomic & PwC Strategy&, 2025). This means players who have tried padel tend to keep playing.
Booking patterns show a similar characteristic.
Visual material citing Core, Court, and Growell as the data source for the 2025 period. Source: Core & Court & Growell (2025)
In five of the seven markets studied, community bookings outnumbered individual bookings. The same report also noted that a single community organizer typically brings three to four players to each session. This pattern tends to produce more stable demand, since the decision to switch courts involves several people at once.
If there's a factor more likely to limit player growth, it's price. Because padel is played by four people, the cost consumers actually weigh isn't the court rental rate, but the amount each individual player has to pay.
Infographic showing Core, Court, and Growell rental rates for 2025 as a comparison of service costs. Rates from Core & Court & Growell (2025). Per-person cost is our own derived calculation, dividing the rental rate among four players, excluding transportation and equipment costs.
Interestingly, the provinces with the lowest cost to play actually have relatively few courts. The most aggressive court expansion, by contrast, has taken place in Jakarta, Banten, West Java, and Bali — which also have the highest rental rates. In other words, the greatest capacity isn't necessarily located where the cost barrier is lowest.
National sports-participation data reinforces this picture. Litbang Kompas's analysis of the 2024 Socio-Cultural Statistics shows that gymnastics and running or walking remain the top choices for most Indonesians, while sports requiring dedicated facilities — such as badminton, volleyball, and football — are chosen less often by lower-education groups (Litbang Kompas, 2026).
Padel falls into an even more demanding category. Beyond requiring a dedicated court and a racket, the sport also requires a player to bring along three other people willing to pay the same cost.
Among various sports, badminton remains the most plausible conversion path, since it also uses a racket and is typically played in doubles. But BPS notes that badminton facilities have already spread down to the village and sub-district level through its Village Potential Data Collection (BPS, 2024). This far broader availability, combined with a lower cost to play, makes badminton not just a potential gateway into padel, but also its closest competitor. The gap in playing cost is the main barrier — especially in the very cities where padel court expansion has been most aggressive.
So, What's Actually Happening?
Almost every sign of strain that has emerged throughout 2026 comes from the supply side: the steadily growing number of courts, competition among operators, operating costs, and regulation. The available demand indicators, on the other hand, haven't shown a decline in interest. The problem is that the most decisive indicator of all — the actual number of people playing padel — has never been measured independently.
This situation is reminiscent of Sweden's experience, but that doesn't mean Indonesia will follow the same path. In Sweden, what underwent correction was the court-management business, after expansion outpaced growth in the player base. The sport of padel itself kept a high participation rate. If a similar pattern were to play out in Indonesia, the pressure would likely be felt first by later-entering operators with large capacity and limited differentiation.
Efforts to close this data gap have actually already begun. The Indonesia Padel Report 2025 lists five PBPI (Indonesian Padel Association) programs: a national player license, a structured national league, a talent-scouting circuit, coach and facility certification, and data integration. The same report also records 439 registered professional players as a snapshot indicator of how deep the competitive pathway runs. Of all these programs, the player license and data integration matter most, since they have the potential to generate the player-count data that has been missing until now.
But the timing here matters. Most of these programs only got underway in 2025 and 2026, while court expansion had already begun back in 2023. This means capacity has been built faster than the systems needed to measure who's actually using it.
That's why the debate over whether Indonesia's padel bubble has burst still doesn't have a definitive answer. The industry has fairly detailed data on the number of courts and business activity, but no equally good measure of how many people are actually playing. As long as that gap remains, distinguishing a business correction from an actual drop in demand will stay a challenge.
Implications for Brands
The findings in this article aren't relevant only for understanding the padel market. The same way of reading data can also be applied when a brand is evaluating any other fast-growing category. There are a few lessons worth taking away.
Check which side is actually under pressure. Pressure on operators doesn't always mean consumer interest is fading too. News about venue closures, asset sales, or promo wars mostly describes the condition of service providers. That alone isn't enough to conclude that the audience a brand wants to reach is also shrinking.
Separate infrastructure data from audience data. In venue-based categories, the easiest data to collect usually comes from the supply side — things like number of locations, occupancy rate, or transaction value. That data shows the industry's scale, but it doesn't explain how many people are genuinely potential customers for the brand.
Check the definition behind every number. When a partner cites a user count, make sure you know whether that means registered accounts, monthly active users, or customers who actually completed a transaction. The same goes for occupancy — an industry-wide average doesn't necessarily reflect conditions at the specific venue chosen for an activation.
Test whether the numbers are internally consistent. User counts, occupancy rates, and capacity figures should all be able to explain one another. If they don't, one of them needs to be verified before it's used as the basis for an investment or marketing spend decision. Checks like this often require nothing more than simple arithmetic.
Calculate the cost consumers actually pay. In categories played in groups, the sticker price doesn't necessarily reflect the real barrier to entry. Dividing the cost by the number of participants gives a picture much closer to how consumers actually make their decision.
Use a correction phase as leverage. When capacity grows faster than demand, operators tend to be more open to negotiation. This can be used to secure more efficient activation costs or more flexible partnership terms, without losing access to the audience.
Identify who's actually pulling the audience together. In community-based sports, players typically gather before they even arrive at the venue. Because of this, the community itself is often a more strategic partner than the court owner. Understanding this structure can help a brand reach its audience more cost-effectively.
References
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