Does the Clock Stop When a Player Goes Out of Bounds in the NFL?

Rule 4, Section 4 of the playing rules covers stopping the game clock. It says the game clock operator stops the clock on a signal by any official, or on the operator's own positive knowledge, in ten situations. One of them is "when the ball is out of bounds", and a runner who steps out of bounds with the ball makes the ball out of bounds, because the rules say that a ball in player possession is out of bounds when the runner is out of bounds.

The clock does not stop when a runner is tackled inbounds, unless one of the other situations in the table applies. This is the reason a team that wants to stop the clock throws the ball away, runs out of bounds or calls a timeout.

The restart is set in Rule 4, Section 3, Article 2. The general rule is that following any timeout the game clock starts on a scrimmage down when the ball is next snapped. A list of exceptions follows, and the first one covers a runner going out of bounds.

Whenever a runner goes out of bounds on a play from scrimmage, the clock starts on the Referee's signal that the ball has been returned to play. That is the ready-for-play signal, and it can come before the snap. The rule then lists three cases in which the clock instead starts on the snap:

So in most of a game, the clock runs again once the ball is ready for play, even before the snap, and late in each half it waits for the snap. The five-minute figure is what the 2026 edition of the playing rules says. Rules like this are reviewed each year, so the clock restart in an earlier edition may differ, and this page describes only the 2026 edition.

Two related cases are in the same article. If a fumble or backward pass by any player goes out of bounds, the clock starts on the Referee's signal that a ball has been returned to the field of play. During a Try, which is an untimed down, the game clock does not run.

The playing rules set the length of the game at 60 minutes, divided into four periods of 15 minutes each. If the score is tied at the end of the four periods, the game is extended by an overtime period as set out in Rule 16. A stadium's electric clock is the official time, and the Side Judge supervises the timing of the game and takes over official timing on the field if the stadium clock fails or is not operated correctly.

The two-minute warning also stops the clock. When the Referee signals the two-minute warning for a half, the game clock stops, which is why the last two minutes of each half are played in a different rhythm.

The 60 minutes are playing time on the game clock, not the time the game takes to watch. The clock stops for incomplete passes, out-of-bounds plays, timeouts and other situations, and the 40-second play clock runs between plays. Because of that a game takes much longer than the hour of regulation time.

The game clock is only one of two clocks. Rule 4, Section 6 sets a 40-second play clock: it is a delay of game if the ball is not put in play by a snap within 40 seconds after the start of the play clock, and the 40-second interval starts when a play ends. After certain administrative stoppages a team has 25 seconds, counted from the Referee's whistle. The list of those stoppages includes a change of possession, a charged team timeout, the two-minute warning, the expiration of a period and a penalty enforcement.

If the play clock is stopped before the snap for another reason, the time remaining when it resumes is the same as when it stopped, unless one of the exceptions applies. If fewer than 10 seconds remain when the stoppage occurs, the clock is reset to 10 seconds, or to the exact time remaining at the Referee's discretion. A stoppage that results in a 10-second runoff from the game clock resets the play clock to 30 seconds. If the ball is not put in play within the applicable time, the Back Judge blows his whistle for the foul and the ball remains dead.

A team is allowed three charged team timeouts in each half, and two in a regular-season overtime period. Each lasts two minutes, unless television does not use it for a commercial break, and it lasts 30 seconds when the designated number of television commercials has been used in a quarter, when it is a second charged timeout in the same dead-ball period, or when the Referee so indicates. Each team may be granted a charged timeout in the same dead-ball period, but a second charged timeout by either team in that period is prohibited, and the penalty for requesting one or for a timeout after the team has used all of its timeouts is five yards for delay of game.

Injury timeouts follow separate rules. Before the two-minute warning of either half, an injured player must leave the game for at least one down unless a charged timeout is called, the injury is the result of an opponent's foul, or the period ends or the two-minute warning occurs before the next snap. After the injury timeout the game clock starts as if the timeout had not occurred, and if either team takes or is charged with a timeout, the clock starts on the snap.

All figures and wording on this page come from Rule 4, Game Timing, and Rule 3, Definitions, of the official NFL playing rules, 2026 edition. Rule 16 covers overtime. The page quotes the rulebook and describes it in plain terms, and does not interpret how an official applies a rule in a particular play.

Rule numbers refer to the 2026 edition. It will be checked again when the next edition is published. More football pages are collected on the NFL hub. Related pages:

• Tie games, which covers overtime
• Blocked field goals, which covers the live ball