How Many Quarters Are in a Soccer Game? Halves, Quarters and Periods Explained

Soccer does not have quarters. A match is played in two halves — 45 minutes each at the professional level, for 90 minutes in total. The reason the question keeps coming up in the United States is that two versions of the game American families actually encounter do use quarters: the youngest youth divisions, and professional indoor soccer.

So if you are asking how many quarters are in a soccer game because your six-year-old's schedule says "4 x 10," you are not confused — you are looking at the exception rather than the rule. Below is exactly where quarters exist, how long each one runs, and what the rulebooks call every other block of time you will hear shouted from the sideline.

How many quarters are in a soccer game?

None, in the game as the Laws of the Game define it. IFAB's Law 7 — the law that every professional, college and high school match ultimately traces back to — opens with a single sentence: "A match lasts for two equal halves of 45 minutes." There is no third period, no quarter, and no mechanism for splitting a half in two.

Two halves is the answer nearly everywhere the game is played 11 v 11:

Only that last row breaks the pattern — and it is the row most first-time soccer parents are standing in.

Why does soccer use halves instead of quarters?

Because the clock never stops. Football and basketball pause play constantly, so quarters cost those sports nothing — the game is already a sequence of discrete plays. Soccer is built the other way around: the referee runs a continuous clock and, under Law 7, adds an allowance at the end of each half for time lost to substitutions, injuries, time-wasting and goal celebrations. Chopping that flow into four pieces would cut against the design of the sport. The one concession Law 7 makes is the half-time interval, capped at 15 minutes — one break, not three.

Which soccer games actually use quarters?

Two of them, and they could not be more different.

Youth soccer, at the youngest ages

Small children do not pace themselves. They sprint until they stop, which is why the American rulebooks deliberately break their games into four short blocks with rest between each one.

U.S. Soccer's Player Development Initiatives, the document governing small-sided play for 12-and-under, sets 4 v 4 games at U6 through U8 as four quarters of no more than 10 minutes, with five-minute breaks between quarters. There are no goalkeepers, no offside and no standings at this level — the quarters exist to manage tired legs, not to create drama.

US Youth Soccer's Policy on Players and Playing Rules (Rule 303) lists slightly different numbers for the same ages: four 12-minute quarters at 8U and four 6-minute quarters at 6U. Both documents are real, current American standards, which is precisely why one club's 8U games run 40 minutes and the next town's run 48. If the schedule matters to your Saturday, ask your league which rulebook it follows rather than assuming.

From 9U onward, quarters disappear entirely. Every US Youth Soccer age group from 9U up plays two halves, and we break the durations down age by age in our guide to how long youth soccer games are.

One practical consequence: because quarters create three natural stoppages instead of one, many rec leagues hang their equal-playing-time rules on them — "no player sits two quarters in a row" is far easier to enforce than a minutes count. Our guide to youth soccer substitution rules covers how that changes once your child moves up to halves.

Professional indoor soccer

The other genuine four-quarter game is the indoor one. The Major Arena Soccer League's rules manual is explicit: "The duration of a regulation game shall be four (4) quarters of fifteen (15) minutes each for a total of sixty (60) minutes." There is a three-minute interval between the first and second quarters and again between the third and fourth, plus a 15-minute halftime.

Indoor also stops the clock — when a goal is scored, when the ball leaves the playing area, on any referee whistle — which is exactly what makes quarters workable. It is a different sport wearing the same name, played on turf inside hockey boards, and our breakdown of indoor soccer rules covers how far the differences go.

Futsal, the other indoor code, does not use quarters. Under the FIFA Futsal Laws of the Game, a match is two equal periods of 20 minutes on a stopped clock, with one 60-second timeout available to each team per period.

How long is a quarter in soccer?

There is no single answer, because quarters only exist in the formats that invented their own lengths. Here is every quarter length that comes from a published rulebook:

Anything outside that list is a local decision. Rec leagues routinely shorten quarters to fit four games onto one field before dark, and coaches at the 4 v 4 level are explicitly told they may run them shorter when the players need it.

Are overtime and extra time played in quarters?

No — and this is where the vocabulary trips people up most often, because the word "periods" genuinely does appear in the rulebooks.

• Professional and international: when a knockout match needs a winner, Law 10 allows "two equal periods of extra time not exceeding 15 minutes each," then a penalty shootout. Two periods, not four.
• College: NCAA soccer changed its overtime rules in 2022. Regular-season ties now simply stand, and postseason games play two full 10-minute overtime periods — no golden goal, both periods completed — before a shootout.
• High school: overtime is left to each state association, capped by NFHS rule at 20 minutes of play during the regular season. Kansas, for example, plays two 10-minute sudden-victory periods and lets the game end drawn if nobody scores; Wisconsin plays no regular-season overtime at all.
• Youth: US Youth Soccer's Rule 303 sets overtime as two 10-minute halves at 11U–14U and two 15-minute halves at 15U–19U. At 10U and below there is no overtime at all — ties stand, full stop. If it is still level after overtime in a tournament, FIFA's kicks from the penalty mark decide it, which is worth understanding before your first championship Sunday; our guide to how youth soccer tournaments work walks through the formats and tiebreakers.

So soccer has halves, and it has extra periods. What it does not have, at any of those levels, is a quarter.

How many quarters are in a high school soccer game?

In practice, none — high school soccer is played in two 40-minute halves under NFHS Rule 7-1-1, with each state association free to adapt the details. Kansas's regulations cite that rule and state that "games will consist of two 40-minute halves" with a 10-minute intermission; Wisconsin's adaptations specify the same two 40-minute halves for every varsity and sub-varsity contest.

The interesting wrinkle is that the NFHS rulebook has not closed the door. Its tie-breaking rule, quoted verbatim by Kansas, refers to the interval between "the fourth period or second half" and the first overtime — language that only makes sense if a high school game structured in four periods is contemplated somewhere in the book. Your child will almost certainly never play one. For everything else about the high school clock, including the countdown that actually does stop, see our guide to how long a high school soccer game is.

What this means on the sideline

The short version is worth memorising: soccer has two halves, plus extra periods when somebody has to win. Quarters mean one of two things — your child is young enough that the rulebook is protecting their legs, or you have bought a ticket to an indoor game.

If you are budgeting a Saturday around it, though, the structure matters less than the arithmetic. A 6U game is 24 minutes of soccer. A U12 game is 60. Neither is enough on its own to build a player, which is why U.S. Soccer's standards recommend two to three training sessions for every game played — and why the minutes that move a player forward are the ones between matches, not the ones the referee is counting.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many quarters are in a soccer game?

None. A soccer game is played in two halves, not quarters — 45 minutes each under IFAB's Law 7 at the professional level. The exceptions in the United States are the youngest youth divisions (6U through 8U), which play four short quarters, and professional indoor soccer, which plays four 15-minute quarters.

How long is a quarter in soccer?

It depends entirely on the format, because only a few formats use quarters at all. U.S. Soccer's 4 v 4 standards for U6–U8 set quarters at no more than 10 minutes; US Youth Soccer's policy lists 12-minute quarters at 8U and 6-minute quarters at 6U; and the Major Arena Soccer League plays 15-minute quarters on a stopped clock.

Does soccer have quarters or periods?

Neither, in regulation — it has halves. "Periods" enters the vocabulary only in overtime: Law 10 allows two periods of extra time of up to 15 minutes each, and NCAA postseason games play two 10-minute overtime periods. Regulation soccer is always two halves.

How many quarters are in a high school soccer game?

High school soccer is played in two 40-minute halves, not quarters. State associations set the length under NFHS Rule 7-1-1, and the published ones — Kansas and Wisconsin among them — both specify two 40-minute halves with a 10-minute intermission.

Why does youth soccer play quarters instead of halves?

To manage fatigue and playing time for young children. U.S. Soccer's small-sided standards break 4 v 4 games at U6–U8 into four quarters with five-minute breaks between them, because players that age sprint until they stop rather than pacing themselves. Three breaks instead of one also makes it far easier for a coach to rotate everyone through fairly. From 9U onward, quarters are gone and every age group plays two halves.

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The quarters question is really a translation problem. Americans arrive at soccer fluent in a sporting vocabulary built on quarters and stopped clocks, and the game answers in halves that never stop running. Once you know that two halves is the rule — and four quarters is what the rulebook does for six-year-olds and indoor pros — every schedule you are handed for the rest of the season reads at a glance.