FIDE time controls for classical, rapid and blitz
Three FIDE time controls cover almost everything you will ever need to set on a clock. Classical: 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment from move one. Rapid: 15 minutes plus a 10-second increment. Blitz: 3 minutes plus a 2-second increment. Those are the controls FIDE used at the 2024 Chess Olympiad, and the ones the World Rapid and World Blitz Championships have run for years.
Everything beyond that is either a boundary question (is 25+10 rapid or classical?) or an eligibility question (will this event produce norms?). Both have precise answers in the FIDE Handbook, and both come down to arithmetic rather than opinion.
The official FIDE time controls, in one table
These are the controls FIDE writes into its own regulations, with what each one adds up to per player:
| Category | FIDE’s own control | Total per player | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Classical, two stages | 90 min / 40 moves + 30 min, 30 s increment from move 1 | 110 min at move 40; 150 min by move 60 | Chess Olympiad, most FIDE-rated opens, norm events |
| Classical, one stage | 90 min + 30 s increment | 120 min over 60 moves | Weekend opens and club leagues; the shortest single-stage control that reaches two hours |
| Rapid | 15 min + 10 s increment | 25 min | World Rapid Championship |
| Blitz | 3 min + 2 s increment | 5 min | World Blitz Championship |
The two-stage row is the one people get wrong. At move 40 a player has had 90 minutes plus 40 increments of 30 seconds, which is 110 minutes, not 120. The second period pushes the 60-move total to 150.
How FIDE classifies a game as rapid, blitz or classical
FIDE assumes a 60-move game and adds the increment sixty times. The same formula appears in the Laws of Chess appendices and in the rating regulations:
- Rapid — the fixed time, or the time allotted plus 60 times any increment, is more than 10 minutes but less than 60 minutes for each player.
- Blitz — the same total is 10 minutes or less. The Rapid and Blitz Rating Regulations put a floor under it too: to be rated as blitz, the total must be more than 3 minutes but not more than 10.
- Standard (classical) — 60 minutes or more per player once the increment is counted in, since that is where the rapid band stops.
Run the numbers and the labels stop being arguable. 3+2 gives 3 minutes plus 60 × 2 s, which is 5 minutes, so it is blitz. 5+5 gives 10 minutes exactly, still blitz. 10+5 gives 15 minutes, which is rapid. 25+10 gives 35 minutes, rapid. 45+30 gives 75 minutes, past the rapid ceiling and therefore standard by the Laws, though whether it can be rated as standard depends on the floors in the next section. And 90+30 gives exactly 120 minutes. The longer walkthrough in chess time controls explained works through more examples, and blitz vs rapid vs classical covers how the three feel to play rather than how they are counted.
Delay is not increment. The 60× formula multiplies an increment. A simple delay holds the clock still before it starts counting down, and a Bronstein delay hands back what the move actually cost up to the delay ceiling. Both cap out at the time you started with, so neither adds anything to the total the formula measures. Classify a delay control on its base time. FIDE does allow delay-based events, but the regulations require every player in the tournament to be on the same system.
What the FIDE standard time control has to be for norms
For a game to be rated as standard at all, the Rating Regulations set a floor that scales with strength. Assuming the game lasts 60 moves, each player needs a minimum of 120 minutes where a player is rated 2400 or above, 90 minutes in the 1800–2399 band, and 60 minutes below 1800. Where the first control specifies a number of moves, it must be at least 30. That is why 45+30, at 75 minutes, is standard by category but only ratable in a sub-1800 event.
Norms are stricter. The Title Regulations require each player to have at least two hours to complete all the moves, again assuming a 60-move game, with no more than two rounds on any one day and at least nine games played. That is why 90+30 and 90/40+30+30 are so common: the single-stage control lands on exactly two hours at move 60, and the two-stage control clears the bar with 30 minutes to spare. Anything shorter fails it.
A club event has none of these constraints. If nobody is chasing a rating or a norm, pick a control that fits your evening. 15+10 gets a four-round rapid finished in a night; 25+10 gives real games without running past closing time. The obligations that come with a rated event are set out alongside the practical ones in the chess clock rules an arbiter applies.
Why the old two-session controls and adjournments died
Into the 1990s a serious game gave each player 2 hours 30 minutes for the first 40 moves. When those moves were made the game was adjourned rather than finished: the player to move sealed their next move in an envelope, the arbiter wrote both clock times on the outside, and play resumed the following day or on a designated adjournment day. The 1985 world championship match ran on exactly that schedule.
Engines killed it. Once a home computer could analyse a sealed position better than either player, an adjournment stopped testing the players and started testing their machines and their seconds. Increments finished the job: 30 seconds a move means a game can be played to a finish in one sitting without anyone banging out moves on a falling flag. FIDE has not deleted the machinery, and the Laws of Chess still carry guidelines for adjourned games, sealed envelope and all, but you will not meet one in a FIDE-rated open today.
What survived is the multi-stage structure. The 40-move first control exists because it was once the sealing point, and it stayed because it gives players a large budget for the opening and middlegame with a guaranteed top-up for the ending.
Running a two-stage control on a clock that plays it
Most phone clocks are single-stage: a base time and an increment, and that is the whole model. Ask them for 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest and they either cannot express it or they count 40 moves and then reset the clock rather than add to it. A player who reaches move 40 with 12 minutes left is entitled to 42 minutes for the rest of the game, not 30.
Our tournament chess clock plays the stages properly in the browser. It counts completed moves per side, and when the 40th move is completed it adds the next stage’s 30 minutes to whatever is left over, then keeps the 30-second increment running through both stages. Seven tournament presets are built in, including the FIDE classical control, and a custom builder lets you write your own stages, set an asymmetric handicap, and choose increment, simple delay, Bronstein delay or no bonus. Per-side +10s and −10s buttons cover arbiter corrections, and the move counters give you something to point at when a player disputes when the second control began.
The mobile app is narrower. The iOS app and the Android app play single-stage controls with an optional Fischer increment, which covers 90+30, 15+10, 3+2 and every club preset. Its editor will let you write a multi-stage control down, but the app will not play the second period, and it has no simple delay or Bronstein mode. For the full FIDE classical control, run the web clock.
Whichever you use, test it on one board before round one: start it, complete a few moves, use the +10s correction, and confirm the second control adds rather than resets. Five minutes of checking beats an argument at move 40.