Volleyball in Paris without a licence

Search for volleyball in Paris and you hit a wall of clubs. The city's sports pages, then Paris Volley, the PUC, Paris Volley Club, a run of association listings on HelloAsso. Almost all of it in French, and almost all of it asking you to sign up for a season starting in September. Which is useful if you want a season. It doesn't answer the question you actually asked, which is where you can play on Saturday.

The honest situation is this. Paris has good sand courts. Almost none of them let you walk in. But you can play here without joining a club or taking out a French licence, and the routes are not obvious from the outside.

The sand courts are real, and they're locked

The city keeps a page listing beach volleyball in Paris. It's short. Three sites, all run by associations:

Pas d'accès libre is the phrase that matters. It means you can't get on a court by turning up, even an empty one. You go through the association or you don't play.

Sand System is the biggest of the three and the one you'll get pointed to first. Its listing on the city's site sets out the terms plainly: membership is compulsory, from 155 euros a year, and the year runs September to August. That is a reasonable deal if you're going to play every week from autumn onwards. It is a strange thing to sign up for in August because you fancied a game.

Free sand, until 30 August

Once a year the city solves this for you. Paris Plages runs from July to August along the Parc Rives de Seine, the Bassin de la Villette, the Canal Saint-Martin and the forecourt of the Hôtel de Ville. The whole programme is free, and beach volleyball is on it.

Last summer the setup was three courts on the Hôtel de Ville forecourt, open every day from 13h to 19h, no booking. You arrived with enough people, took your shoes off, and played. The sites shift a little year to year, so check paris.fr for where the sand actually landed before crossing the city for it.

Then on 31 August it goes away, which is most of the reason this question is hard for the other ten months.

The public courts, and the part nobody mentions

Paris has a network of free outdoor sports grounds called terrains d'éducation physique, or TEP. They're city-run, they cost nothing, and some never close at all. Square Paturle in the 14th, and the Eudy Simelane and Alexandre-Luquet grounds in the 20th, are listed as open 24 hours.

Two things before you get your hopes up.

Access varies ground by ground, and not in a pattern you can guess. In the 11th arrondissement, for instance, five of the nine sites are open access, one basketball court is free only at weekends and during school holidays, and the tennis courts need booking through Paris Tennis. The city publishes hours site by site, so look up the specific one rather than the category.

The bigger obstacle is what they're built for. These are football and basketball grounds: hard surface, hoops, goals, and no net. You can absolutely play volleyball on one. You just have to bring the net yourself.

That sounds like a dealbreaker and it isn't. A portable net is the reason most casual volleyball in this city happens at all. Somebody owns the net, everybody else turns up. That's the whole model, and it's how our own sessions run.

Where we play

We run volleyball on public courts in the 14th arr, with our own net and ball. Sessions have been on Saturday afternoons through the summer. The shape of an afternoon:

• meet and warm up at 14h00
• short rounds with mixed teams
• drinks nearby at the end

It runs in English on and off the court, with plenty of French mixed in. Levels are genuinely mixed, from people who have never played to club players who promise to behave. Bring comfortable clothes and water. Nobody keeps serious score.

The exact spot is on the event page, because parks fill up and we take whichever court is free. See what's coming up, or read how a session actually runs on the volleyball page.

Questions people ask

Can I play volleyball in Paris without joining a club? Yes, though not on the city's permanent sand courts, which are all association run. That leaves the free courts at Paris Plages in July and August, a public ground with a net you bring, or a group that already has one.

Where is there free beach volleyball in Paris? Paris Plages, 4 July to 30 August 2026. Free, no reservation, sand courts as part of the sports programme. Outside those dates there is no free public sand in the city.

Do I need to speak French to play? Not for pickup games. Volleyball is mostly shouting one of four words and pointing, and the English-speaking groups here run their sessions in English anyway. Club training is a different matter, since coaching happens in French.

How many people do I need? Full six a side needs twelve, which is a lot of friends to organise. Most casual games run four a side or smaller and just adjust. If you're arriving alone, join a group rather than trying to build a game from scratch.

What should I bring? Comfortable clothes, water, and shoes you don't mind on sand or asphalt. If you're going to Paris Plages, you'll be barefoot. If you're organising your own game on a public court, someone needs to own a net.

I've never played. Is that a problem? Not for a casual game. Rotating teams cover for a weak passer, and mixed levels are normal at pickup sessions. It's a problem if you walk into club training, where everyone has been playing since they were twelve.

The short version

From July to the end of August, the sand at Paris Plages is free and open and you should use it while it's there. The rest of the year, the courts are free but the nets aren't there, so it comes down to finding people who own one. That is a smaller problem than it sounds, and it's mostly why groups like ours exist.

If you want the version where somebody else has already sorted the net, the court and the teams, that's what we do, along with seven other things around Paris.