How to Become a Soccer Referee in the United States
The entry licence is called Grassroots, you can start at 13, the course is about ten hours, and it pays. Here is what the process actually involves.
American soccer is short of referees, which is why your child's game keeps getting a club volunteer with a whistle and a lot of goodwill. It is also why getting certified is easier, better paid and more welcome than most people assume.
Here is how it works.
The entry licence is called Grassroots
U.S. Soccer's referee pathway starts with the Grassroots Referee licence. It covers youth and amateur soccer, which is the overwhelming majority of games played in this country, and it is where everybody starts — including the people who end up on the line at a World Cup.
Certification runs through the U.S. Soccer Learning Center, but the courses themselves are administered by your state referee committee. That is the important practical point: the national body sets the standard, your state runs the course, and the details below vary by state.
You can start at 13
The minimum age is 13. That is a national floor set partly by online-privacy law — the Learning Center cannot hold accounts for under-13s — and some states set it higher or add restrictions based on their own labour laws.
Thirteen-year-old referees do not get put in charge of adult men's games. They start on small-sided youth matches, usually with a mentor nearby, and work up.
Adults are extremely welcome, and there is no upper age limit. If you played, or coached, or just want to understand the game better, this is the fastest route in.
What the course involves
Roughly ten hours, split between online modules and an in-person session:
- Create an account in the U.S. Soccer Learning Center.
- Find and register for a Grassroots course run by your state referee committee. Course listings appear in the Learning Center.
- Work through the online modules — about six hours, covering the Laws of the Game, safe and healthy playing environments, and game management.
- Attend the field session — about three to four hours, in person, where you practise mechanics: positioning, signals, the diagonal system, working with assistants.
- Background check if you are 18 or over. Allow a couple of weeks for it to clear.
- SafeSport training if you are 18 or over — U.S. Soccer's abuse-prevention requirement for adults working with youth athletes.
Costs vary by state; expect a course fee in the region of $75, plus roughly $25 for the background check if you are an adult. Check your own state's page for the current figures.
You then re-register each year, which involves a shorter recertification module and a fee, and usually a new badge with the year on it.
What you need to buy
Not much, and buy it after you are certified rather than before:
- A referee jersey. Yellow is the default; a set of colours costs more and you will eventually want one.
- Black shorts and socks with the appropriate stripes, black boots.
- Two whistles. One will fail, on a Saturday, at a bad moment.
- A watch — ideally two, one counting up, one for stoppage time. Cheap digital watches are entirely acceptable.
- Cards, a notebook and a coin. Yellow and red, a pencil that works in the rain, and any coin for the toss.
- A flag set if you plan to run the line and your association does not supply them.
Total outlay is modest, and most referees cover it in their first few games.
Getting games
Assignments come through an assignor — a person, appointed by a league or a district, who allocates referees to games. After certification, your state or local association will point you at the right assignor, and you will usually be booked through an online assigning platform where you set your availability and accept games.
Two pieces of advice that every experienced referee gives:
Say yes early and often in your first season. Your reputation with an assignor is built almost entirely on reliability.
Find a mentor. Most associations run mentoring for new referees, and an hour with someone watching your positioning is worth ten games of guessing.
What it pays
Game fees vary widely by state, age group, competition and role — a small-sided youth game and a competitive high-school match are not in the same range. Your state or local association publishes its fee schedule; that is the number to use, not a national average.
What is consistent: it is paid in cash or by the league promptly, you can choose how much you work, and a teenager refereeing a Saturday morning of small-sided games is earning meaningfully more than most other jobs available at that age.
The part nobody enjoys: abuse
Referee abuse is the main reason new officials quit, and American youth soccer knows it. U.S. Soccer and state associations have tightened their policies, and referees are explicitly backed in dealing with abusive behaviour from coaches and spectators.
What to do about it, practically:
- Know your association's reporting process before you need it, and file the report. Unreported abuse is invisible abuse.
- You can stop or abandon a match over spectator behaviour. You are allowed to, and you should if it is genuinely unsafe.
- Do not argue back. The cleanest response to a shouting parent is no response.
- Talk to other referees. Every single one of them has had a bad afternoon, and the isolation is worse than the incident.
If you are a parent reading this: the referee at your child's U10 game may well be fourteen years old. Please behave accordingly.
Other routes: high school and college
The U.S. Soccer pathway is not the only one.
High school soccer in most states is officiated under NFHS rules and requires registration with your state high school athletic association, which runs its own certification, rules meetings and exams.
College soccer officiating runs through NISOA, the National Intercollegiate Soccer Officials Association, and generally expects experience before you get there.
Many officials hold more than one registration and work all three. The Laws are 90 per cent the same; the rule books differ around timing, substitutions and a handful of restarts.
Moving up
Above Grassroots, U.S. Soccer's pathway continues into Regional and National levels, with progressively tougher fitness tests, assessments and match observations. Very few people set out to get there, and most of the ones who do started because someone needed a referee for a U12 game.
Start with the Laws: our 17 Laws in plain English and the offside rule explained cover what the course will test you on. Then find a referee course in your state.
Sources. Licence name, minimum age, course structure, SafeSport and background-check requirements are as published by U.S. Soccer and state referee committees; fees and some age rules vary by state, so confirm with yours.