Football Referee Signals: A Visual Guide in Words

By 4Football Staff · October 25, 2026 · 11 min read

A plain-language field guide to the hand signals football referees use, from the touchdown and first down to holding, false start and pass interference, and how to read them live.

You are in the stands, or on the couch with the sound down, and a referee turns to face the crowd and does something with his arms. The people around you groan or cheer. If you are new to the game, the gesture can feel like a secret code that everyone else learned as a child.

It is a code, but it is a small and very regular one. Football officials use a set of standard signals so that a crowd of eighty thousand people, a press box, a coach on the far sideline and a scorekeeper can all learn the same thing at the same moment, without anyone shouting. Once you know about two dozen of them, the sport becomes much easier to follow.

This guide describes those signals in words, grouped by what they tell you. The core signals are shared across the NFL, college football and high school football, but small details differ by level and sometimes by year, so treat this as a field guide rather than the rulebook. For the official diagrams, look at the rulebook for the level you watch.

Why the signals exist

Before microphones and big video boards, the only way to tell a stadium what had just happened was to show it. The signals survive because they still do three jobs well.

First, they are fast. A touchdown signal takes a second and needs no translation. Second, they are unambiguous across noise, distance and language. Third, they give the officials a shared vocabulary on the field. When one official sees a foul and another needs to know what it was, a signal across the field says "holding" or "offside" without a word.

At the pro and major college levels the referee also turns on a microphone and announces the foul, the team and the result, so the signal and the announcement arrive together. At many high school games there is no wireless microphone, the public-address announcer may be a volunteer, and the signal is all you get. That is a good reason for fans, players and parents to know them.

The flag, the bean bag and the whistle

Three tools sit behind every signal.

The penalty flag is a weighted piece of cloth, usually bright yellow, that an official throws toward the spot of a foul. The flag tells everyone that a foul has been called, not what it was. The play usually continues until the ball is dead, and then the officials confer before anything is announced.

The bean bag is a small cloth bag that officials toss to mark a spot, such as where a fumble happened or where a kick was first touched. A bag is not a penalty.

The whistle ends a live play, with one important rule: an official blows the whistle when the ball is dead, not when a flag drops. If you hear a whistle and see a flag, the play ended in the ordinary way and the foul is a separate matter.

When the officials have talked it over, the referee faces the crowd, usually gives the signal for the foul, and then shows who committed it and what the enforcement will be. You will see a sequence: the foul, then a gesture or announcement for the team, then the yardage.

Signals that tell you about the score and the ball

These are the signals you will see most often and the ones every fan learns first.

• Touchdown, field goal or extra point good. Both arms are raised straight up above the head. The same signal covers all three scores, which is why it is followed by an announcement. An official standing under the goalposts uses the same motion to rule a kick good.
• Safety. The two palms are pressed together above the head, like a diver's hands before a dive.
• First down. One arm points straight toward the defense's goal line, the direction the offense is moving. This signal also works as the "possession" signal: the arm shows which way a team is headed.
• No score or incomplete pass. The arms start crossed in front of the body and sweep out to the sides, a gesture that reads as "wipe it away." The same wave-off also means a play does not count, a penalty is declined or a kick was missed.
• Loss of down. Both hands are clasped behind the head. This is a quiet, easy signal to miss, and it matters: the offense does not just lose yards, it also gives up a down.
• Start the clock. One arm winds in a circle in front of the body, as if cranking an old machine. It tells the clock operator to begin running time.
• Timeout. The arms cross over the head, often more than once. An official may then touch the chest or point to indicate which team asked for the timeout, which tells you whether a team's timeout was charged. Official timeouts for injuries or equipment are signaled the same way, without a team being charged.
• Instant replay review. The referee makes a rectangle in the air with both hands, like a television screen, and then goes to look at the video, or the game continues while the booth looks. This is covered in more detail in our guide to what can and cannot be reviewed.

Signals for fouls before the snap

Many penalties happen before the ball moves, and their signals are some of the simplest.

• Offside, encroachment and neutral zone infraction. Both hands rest on the hips. All three fouls mean a defender, or sometimes an offensive player, crossed into the wrong space before the snap, and the hands on hips cover them all. The finer differences between the three are a topic of their own.
• False start, illegal formation and some snap violations. The forearms roll over each other in front of the body, like a pair of wheels spinning. This one is the most "mechanical" signal in the sport.
• Delay of game. The arms are folded across the chest, a gesture that fits the foul: the team stood around and did nothing.
• Illegal motion. One hand sweeps horizontally in front of the body, because only one offensive player may be moving at the snap.
• Illegal shift. Both hands sweep horizontally, because a shift involves more than one player.
• Ineligible receiver downfield. An open hand touches the top of the head or cap. It means an offensive player who is not allowed to catch a pass, usually a lineman, was too far downfield before the pass was thrown.

Notice how many of the rules use the body as a picture of the foul. Folded arms for delay, hands on hips for standing in the wrong place, a spinning forearm for a jumpy start. If you forget a signal, ask what the gesture looks like it is saying.

Signals for fouls during the play

During the play itself, the contact fouls produce the most recognizable gestures.

• Holding. One hand grips the opposite wrist in front of the chest, as if the official were grabbing his own arm. When the foul is on the offense, many crews follow the signal with a pat of the chest to show which side committed it, and the announcement says the rest.
• Illegal use of hands. A related signal, with one hand grasping the opposite wrist in a slightly different way. Many fans lump this in with holding, and the announcement will tell you which foul it was.
• Pass interference. Both open hands are thrust forward from the chest, as if pushing something away. If the foul was on the offense, the signal is followed by a pat of the chest or shoulders.
• Face mask. One hand reaches forward and makes a pulling motion, as if grabbing the front of a helmet.
• Personal foul. One hand chops down onto the opposite wrist held above the head. The signal covers a family of dangerous fouls, such as late hits, and the referee will add words to say which one.
• Unsportsmanlike conduct. Both arms are held out to the sides with the palms down, like a pilot signaling to stop.
• Clipping. A hand strikes the back of the official's own calf. The gesture shows a block from behind, against the legs.
• Block below the waist, or chop block. A hand chops at the area below the knee.
• Tripping. The official swings a foot as if making a small kick.
• Illegal forward pass. One hand waves behind the back, showing the pass was thrown from beyond the line of scrimmage or in some other illegal way.
• Invalid fair catch signal. One arm waves above the head. A returner makes a fair catch signal by waving an arm, and the official shows an invalid one with the same wave.
• Disqualification. The official extends an arm with a thumb out, the hitchhiker's gesture, to say a player is ejected.

Table: reading a signal by its shape

If you want a quick way to decode what you see, sort the gestures by the kind of movement.

Treat the table as a starting point. Some pairs, such as the grip signals for holding and illegal use of hands, are close cousins, and the referee's announcement settles the matter when you cannot see the difference.

What happens after the signal

A signal is only the first piece of information. A complete penalty call has several parts, and the referee gives them in roughly this order.

1. The foul. The referee signals what was called.
2. The team. The referee indicates which team committed the foul, either with an announcement or by pointing to the offense or defense.
3. The enforcement. The referee describes the yardage, often with a hand sweeping to show which way the ball will move, and says whether the down repeats.
4. The result. The referee tells you the down and distance for the next play, or announces an automatic first down.

Two outcomes need their own gestures. When a penalty is declined, the referee waves off the flag, which looks like the incomplete pass signal. When two fouls cancel each other out, the penalties offset. Both situations are explained in our article on offsetting and declined penalties, and the way yardage is measured is covered in penalty enforcement.

Because the yardage is announced after the signal, a flag on the field can mean very different things to the game. A five-yard false start is an annoyance. A fifteen-yard personal foul on a third-down stop can swing an entire drive. Wait for the full announcement before reacting.

Differences between levels

The signals in this guide belong to a family that the NFL, the NCAA and the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) share. They grew out of the same tradition and are taught from the same books in officiating clinics. Still, there are differences you may notice.

• Names of fouls. The same gesture may be paired with a different name at a different level. For example, the NFL, college and high school do not all use identical terms for some personal fouls.
• Fouls that exist at only one level. College football's targeting foul carries an ejection, while the NFL and high school rulebooks have their own wording for dangerous hits. A signal for a foul that does not exist in your level will not appear.
• Clock rules. The start-the-clock signal looks the same everywhere, but the rules about when the clock runs differ by level, so the same signal can lead to a different pace of play in a college game than in a high school game.
• Replay. Many high school games have no replay at all, so you will not see the rectangle signal.
• Announcements. At smaller games a field announcer may not be able to explain a call as well as the broadcast crew.

If you watch many levels, expect to see the same ten or twelve signals in all of them, and let the announcement or the rulebook fill in the rest.

A short tour of a drive

It helps to see the signals as a story. Imagine a hypothetical drive, with a made-up team on offense.

The referee winds the clock, and the offense lines up. A lineman twitches before the snap and the referee rolls his forearms, signaling a false start. Five yards back, the next snap sends a pass fluttering to the sideline, and the referee waves his arms from a cross: incomplete. On the following play a flag lands near the line, and the referee grips his wrist in front of his chest, then pats his chest: offensive holding. The announcer gives the yardage and says the down will be replayed. Next the offense gets a long completion, and the referee points one arm forward: first down. A few plays later the receiver crosses the goal line, and both arms go straight up: touchdown.

Six signals, one drive, and you could follow all of it without hearing a word. That is the point of the system.

How to learn the signals

You do not need to memorize everything at once. A reasonable approach is to learn them in three layers.

1. The scoring and clock layer. Touchdown, safety, first down, timeout, incomplete. These cover most of the game.
2. The pre-snap layer. False start, offside, delay of game, illegal formation. These are the cheap penalties you see on almost every drive.
3. The contact layer. Holding, pass interference, face mask, personal foul and unsportsmanlike conduct. These are the ones that change games.

Watching a game with the sound off for one quarter is an excellent drill. Try to guess the foul from the gesture, then check it against the broadcast. If you play or coach youth football, ask your league's officials whether they run a short rules and signals session for parents before the season. Many do, and officials tend to enjoy explaining their craft.

To practice, pick a game from the schedule, then follow it on our scores page and keep an eye on the results, or read about the officials who make the calls in our guide to the seven on-field officials. If you want to see the rulebook in action as you learn the sport, the Play section has ways to try the game yourself.

The short version

• Football signals are a small, standard vocabulary shared by the NFL, college and high school officials, with minor differences by level.
• Learn the scoring and clock signals first: both arms up, palms together, a pointing arm, crossed arms for a timeout.
• Pre-snap fouls use body-picture signals: hands on hips, folded arms, rolling forearms.
• Contact fouls use gripping, pushing and chopping motions that look like the foul itself.
• The signal tells you what was called; the announcement tells you who committed it and what it costs.
• When two signals look alike, wait for the announcement, and check the rulebook for your level if it matters.