Free Padel in Miami-Dade: North Bay Village's 4 Courts

Miami-Dade has no shortage of padel. What it has never had is padel you can play without paying anybody — no membership, no court fee, no day pass. That changed in late August on the west end of Treasure Island, where North Bay Village opened four outdoor padel courts and made them free for residents.

The village announced the courts open on August 28, 2026. They sit on municipal land at a municipal facility and are booked through Playtomic like any commercial club. As best we can tell, they are the only free-to-play padel courts in Miami-Dade County.

Four padel courts, free for residents

Playtomic's booking grid lists them plainly: Padel 1 through Padel 4, outdoors, alongside four pickleball courts, a FIFA-approved soccer pitch and multi-purpose athletic fields. (Television coverage from the June dedication reported two padel courts — the operator's live grid now shows four.)

The free window is narrow and specific: Monday through Sunday, 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM. The facility itself runs 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM daily, but everything outside that midday block is paid time. The village also sets a minimum of four players per padel court — no real constraint for a doubles sport, though it does rule out booking a free slot to hit against the glass on your own.

The courts are open. The building is not.

Worth stating flatly, because most coverage blurs it: the padel courts are open, and the community center beside them is not.

The Brent W. Latham Community Center held its ribbon-cutting on June 4, 2026, but a ribbon-cutting is not a certificate of occupancy. The village spent the summer working through a construction punch list, briefly operating the building under a temporary certificate of occupancy, and furnishing the interior. In mid-September it said it was "gearing up to open the Community Center in early October," with pilot programming running October 19, 2026 through February 19, 2027.

The outdoor facilities were always on a separate track, and they opened months ahead of the building they sit beside.

Who the AFA International Center is

The athletic side of the complex is the new home of the Argentine Football Association's international arm. AFA Internacional lists 1851 Galleon Street as the official headquarters of AFA Academy — a hub for its global academy network, offices for its international staff, and a venue for tournaments and coaching development. It came out of a public-private partnership approved by both the village commission and the AFA board, with AFA president Claudio Tapia calling it "an example for the world" of a football federation working with a government.

For padel players the relevant consequence is that a serious sports operation runs the courts, and it shows in the calendar: Playtomic lists level-banded clinics at $40 for 60 minutes and level-restricted tournaments — structured programming that usually only turns up at commercial clubs.

How the residency gate works

Our directory records this club's access model as members-only, which is accurate on paper and misleading in practice. There is no membership to buy. The gate is residency:

• Every adult 18 and over in the household needs their own Playtomic account, each with a unique email address and phone number. Children under 18 need neither an account nor proof of residency.
• A free Playtomic account is enough. The village is explicit that you do not need the $60 annual subscription.
• Proof of residency is a government-issued ID showing a North Bay Village address, a utility bill from the last 60 days, or a lease or deed.
• Submit through the village's online residency verification form or in person at Village Hall, 1666 Kennedy Causeway, Suite 101.

Non-residents are not locked out. Anyone can download Playtomic and book — the village's rules say only that "residents play for free; non residents pay partner fees." What the village does not publish is the non-resident rate, so if you are coming from elsewhere in the county, call ahead rather than assume.

How to book

1. Create a free Playtomic account using the email address you will put on the residency form.
2. Residents: submit the verification form online or at Village Hall, then wait for the confirmation email.
3. Book the court in the Playtomic app. You must stay registered through Playtomic to use a court at all, resident or not.
4. Bring at least four players — that is the posted minimum per padel court.

Why this matters for US padel

Nearly all padel inventory in this country is commercial or genuinely members-only. We keep a running list of public padel courts in the US that don't require a membership, and it stays short for a reason: municipalities have mostly not built padel, and the clubs that did need the revenue.

North Bay Village is a real counterexample. A city of 8,000 put four padel courts into its first municipally owned public facility in decades and priced them at zero for the people who live there. Measured against what a court normally costs, a free midday booking is a meaningful piece of civic infrastructure — and our Miami padel pipeline tracks plenty of commercial buildout, but this is the first entry that arrived through a parks budget instead.

For the rest of the area, see our guides to North Miami and Aventura, Miami Beach and Wynwood and Midtown, or browse every club in Florida.

---

Cover photo: "North Bay Village" by Averette, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY 3.0. Resized and cropped for use as a cover image.