How Many Points Is a Touchdown? The Try and the 2-Point Conversion

A touchdown is worth 6 points in the NFL, in college football and in high school football. Right after it, the scoring team gets one bonus snap called the try: a kick through the uprights adds 1 point, and a run or pass into the end zone adds 2, so a touchdown usually ends up as 7 points and sometimes as 8.

That bonus play is where most of the interesting rules live. Where the ball is spotted, what happens if the defense grabs it, and why coaches go for two when they do all come down to a few lines in the rulebook. The NFL details below come from the 2026 Official Playing Rules of the National Football League and the college details from the 2026 NCAA Football Rules Book, so they apply to the 2026 season. If you are brand new to the sport, our American football for beginners guide covers downs, positions and the field first.

What counts as a touchdown

The NFL rulebook defines a touchdown in one sentence: any part of the ball is on, above or behind the opponent's goal line while it is legally in the possession of a player who is inbounds. The goal line itself belongs to the end zone, so the ball only has to touch the front edge of the line, or break the vertical plane above it, for the score to count.

In practice, a touchdown happens in one of these ways:

• A ball carrier runs from the field of play and the ball crosses the plane of the goal line.
• A receiver catches a forward pass in the end zone and completes the catch with both feet, or another body part, down inbounds.
• A player recovers a loose ball, such as a fumble, inside the opponent's end zone.
• A ball carrier touches the pylon, the orange marker at each corner of the end zone, with the ball.
• In very rare cases, the referee awards a touchdown because a player was stopped by a palpably unfair act, such as someone coming off the bench to make the tackle.

The defense and the kicking units can score touchdowns too. An interception returned all the way, a fumble returned for a score and a kickoff or punt return to the end zone are all worth the same 6 points as an offensive touchdown. A runner who lands in the end zone with the ball still short of the line has not scored, and neither is a catch made with a foot on the end line, because the receiver is out of bounds.

The try: one point or two after a touchdown

After every touchdown in the NFL, the scoring team gets a try, a single untimed scrimmage down. The game clock does not run during it. Rule 11, Section 3 gives the team two starting spots, and it may place the ball anywhere on or between the hash marks:

• Kick try, 1 point. The ball is snapped from the defense's 15-yard line. Add the 10 yards of end zone and the holder's spot about seven yards behind the snap, and the kick is roughly 32 to 33 yards. No kicking tee is allowed.
• Two-point conversion, 2 points. The ball is snapped from the defense's 2-yard line, and the offense has to run or pass it into the end zone on that one play.

The offense picks one before the play. It can change its mind only if there is a penalty or a charged timeout after the ball is declared ready for play. The spot depends on the choice, but the points depend on what actually happens. If the team lines up at the 15 for a kick and the holder runs it in on a fake, it scores 2, because a touchdown on a try is worth 2 no matter where the snap came from.

The NFL has used these spots since 2015. Before that season, kick tries were also snapped from the 2, which made them close to automatic. Owners moved the kick back to the 15 and kept two-point tries at the 2.

The defense can score on a try

The same 2015 change gave the defense something to play for. A try is an opportunity for either team to score, and if it ends in what would be a touchdown for the defense, the defense gets 2 points. The usual routes are a blocked kick picked up and returned the length of the field, an interception on a two-point pass, or a fumble returned the other way. There are limits: under Rule 8, if the offense fumbles during a try, only the player who fumbled may recover and advance it for his team, while any defender may advance it.

Two odd outcomes complete the picture. If a try ends in what would normally be a safety, the other team gets 1 point instead of 2, which is the one-point safety explained in our guide to what a safety is in football. If a try ends in a touchback, the try has simply failed, with no points and no replay. After the try, the team that was on defense receives the kickoff whatever the result.

When there is no try

A touchdown scored on the last play of a half is still followed by a try. The NFL makes two exceptions. If a touchdown is scored on a down in which time in the fourth quarter runs out, and a successful try would not change the result, the try is skipped. And in sudden-death overtime, a touchdown ends the game on the spot. During the first possessions of overtime, when the other team is still guaranteed the ball, a try does follow a touchdown; our page on NFL overtime rules explains when sudden death begins.

College and high school differences

The point values are identical in college: 6 for a touchdown, 2 for a touchdown on a try, 1 for a field goal or safety on a try. The spot and a few situations differ.

• Spot: the 2026 NCAA rules snap every try from the 3-yard line, midway between the hash marks, whether the team kicks or goes for two. The offense may choose another point on or between the hash marks, on or behind the 3, so a college extra point is a much shorter kick than an NFL one.
• Defensive return: college defenses can also score 2 points by returning a try to the other end zone.
• End of the game: if a touchdown comes on a play in which fourth-quarter time expires, the try is played only when the points could affect the outcome. A team that is ahead by one or two points after that touchdown may choose to skip the try, which removes any chance of a defensive two-point return tying or flipping the game.
• Overtime: from the second overtime period, a team that scores a touchdown must go for two, and from the third period on, each possession is a single two-point play from the 3-yard line.

High school football in most states is played under the rules of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). Touchdowns are 6 points and the try is also run from the 3-yard line; the NFHS 2026 interpretations describe penalties moving a try to the one-and-a-half and then the three-quarter yard line, which is half the distance from the 3. Overtime formats are set by each state association, so they vary from state to state.

Field goals, safeties and the full points table

Rule 11 of the NFL rulebook lists every way to score, and college uses the same values:

• Touchdown: 6 points
• Field goal: 3 points
• Safety: 2 points, scored by the defense
• Try after a touchdown: 1 point by a kick (or by a safety), 2 points by a touchdown

A field goal is a place kick or drop kick through the uprights and over the crossbar on a normal down, usually fourth down. Because the goal posts stand on the end line, the kick is about 17 yards longer than the line of scrimmage suggests; from the opponent's 25, it is roughly a 42-yard attempt. A miss in the NFL gives the other team the ball at the spot of the kick, or at its own 20 if the kick came from inside the 20.

A safety is 2 points for the defense, most often for tackling a ball carrier in his own end zone, and the team that gave it up must then kick the ball away from its own 20. That combination of points plus possession is why defenses celebrate safeties so loudly.

Why 7- and 8-point leads matter

The most a team can score on one possession is 8: a touchdown plus a two-point conversion. That number shapes late-game thinking more than any other. Broadcasters describe leads in scores, and the math is simple:

• A lead of 1 to 3 points can be erased by a field goal.
• A lead of 4 to 8 points needs a touchdown; at 7 the kick ties the game, at 8 the trailing team needs the two-point conversion just to tie.
• A lead of 9 to 16 points needs two scores.
• A lead of 17 to 24 points needs three scores.

That is why a leading team adds a field goal late even when it already has a touchdown cushion. Going from up 7 to up 10 changes the game from a one-score game to a two-score game.

The same arithmetic explains many two-point decisions. Picture a hypothetical team that trails 28-14 and scores a touchdown, making it 28-20. Kicking makes it 28-21. Going for two right away tells the coach early whether the next touchdown wins or ties. If it works, the score is 28-22, and a later touchdown plus a kick wins 29-28. If it fails, the team knows it needs a second two-point try later just to tie, and can plan its timeouts and fourth downs around that. Either way, two touchdowns and two kicks would only tie at 28. Coaches disagree on when to make that call, but they all start from the same sums.

Those point values show up clearly in real final scores. Across NFL regular-season games from 2015 to 2025, the most common winning margin was exactly 3 points, the value of a field goal, in 14.7% of the games that had a winner. Next came 7 points, a touchdown and kick, at 8.7%, and 6 points, a touchdown with no conversion, at 7.0%.

Worked scoring examples

Football scores make more sense once you can take them apart. These are hypothetical games, built only to show the arithmetic.

Example 1, a normal win. Team A scores four touchdowns, makes all four kicks and adds a field goal: (4 x 7) + 3 = 31. Team B scores one touchdown with a two-point conversion, one touchdown with a kick, two field goals and a safety: 8 + 7 + 6 + 2 = 23. Final: 31-23, and it was a one-score game at the end, because 8 points covered the gap.

Example 2, a defensive try. Team C scores a touchdown to lead 20-13, but its kick is blocked and a defender returns it to the other end zone. Team C keeps its 6 points and Team D gets 2, so the score reads 20-15 instead of 21-13. Team D no longer needs a touchdown plus a kick just to tie; a touchdown alone would now put it ahead.

Example 3, the odd numbers. A final of 9-2 looks strange until you break it down: three field goals for one team, and a single safety for the other. Scores like 2, 4 or 5 show up when safeties and field goals combine, while every multiple of 7 is the familiar sign of touchdowns with successful kicks.

Quick reference: points by level

• Touchdown: 6 points in the NFL, college and high school.
• NFL kick try: snapped from the 15-yard line, 1 point.
• NFL two-point try: snapped from the 2-yard line, 2 points.
• College try (kick or two-point play): snapped from the 3-yard line.
• High school try: from the 3-yard line under NFHS rules.
• Defense returning a try to the other end zone: 2 points in the NFL and college.
• Safety on a try: 1 point to the opponent.
• Field goal: 3 points. Safety: 2 points.
• Biggest one-possession score: 8 points. Leads of 9 or more need two scores.