Rules
Hair rules that are
actually current
High school wrestling changed its hair rules twice this decade, in 2020 and again in 2022, and most of what you will read online predates both changes. If someone tells you to cut your hair or take your braids out to wrestle, the rulebook is on your side now.
By Joe Spisak, PIAA state champion and 4x NCAA qualifier at Virginia · Published August 24, 2026
The current rule, in one paragraph
Under NFHS Rule 4-2-1 as amended through 2022-23: there is no hair length restriction of any kind. A hair cover is optional at any length. Hair control devices and adornments, including braids with beads, bobby pins and barrettes, are permitted when they are securely fastened and do not present an increased risk to you or your opponent. That is the whole rule. Everything else on this page is detail and history.
What changed, and when
Through the 2019-20 season, the rule said hair could not extend below the top of an ordinary shirt collar in back, below the earlobes on the sides, or below the eyebrows in front. Longer hair had to be contained in a cover. Beads, bobby pins, barrettes, pins and clips were banned outright as hard or abrasive.
For 2020-21, the NFHS Wrestling Rules Committee eliminated the length rule entirely and made the cover optional. The NFHS's own director of sports called removing it "a monumental change" that would extend wrestling to young people the sport had been turning away. A Tennessee pilot season with relaxed hair rules the previous winter had shown coaches and officials it caused no problems.
For 2022-23, the committee legalized hair control devices and adornments that are securely fastened and safe. This is the change most older articles miss: the list of banned items is gone, replaced by a standard. The same rules cycle also allowed facial hair with a visible-skin requirement for skin checks, which tells you the direction the committee has been moving in generally.
If you choose to wear a cover
A cover is your choice now, not a requirement at any length. If you do wear one, the requirements are unchanged: solid, non-abrasive material, attached to the ear guards. A bandanna is not a legal hair cover. Caps designed for locs and textured hair are legal if they meet the material and attachment rules.
Procedure, as NFHS codified it in 2019-20: wear the cover to weigh-in to be checked with it on, take it off on the scale, and if no referee is present at weigh-in, the meet referee checks it on arrival. Covers and face masks count as special equipment.
Braids, beads, and what the official is judging
The standard is secure and safe, not a list of approved objects. A braid with beads fastened close to the head can pass. Anything sharp, or anything that can come loose during live wrestling, will not. If something comes loose mid-match, the procedure is time to fix it, not a penalty; if it cannot be fixed on the spot, you leave the mat to fix it.
One edge case: decorative hair charms count as jewelry under the NFHS definitions, and jewelry is not allowed in wrestling. Beads that control hair, fine. Charms that decorate it, no.
Also still true: pulling hair is a penalty. Rule 5-29-1 treats it as unnecessary roughness, with one exception for hair incidentally caught in a legal hold like a headlock or cradle.
Hijab and religious head coverings
NFHS addressed religious headwear across its sports in 2022: coverings worn for religious reasons must be made of soft, non-abrasive material and fit securely, and no advance approval from the state association is required. The state association is notified afterward only if a concern comes up. Honesty requires a caveat here: that language is NFHS multi-sport guidance, and wrestling's own rulebook is not on the list of sports that name religious headwear explicitly. In practice a hijab that is soft, secure, and compatible with ear guards satisfies the same physical standard as any other head covering. If your state or an official pushes back, the multi-sport guidance is the document to point to.
Why the bad advice will not die
The old rule did real damage on its way out. In December 2018 a New Jersey referee gave a Buena Regional wrestler named Andrew Johnson, who is Black, a choice between cutting his dreadlocks and forfeiting; his hair was cut at the side of the mat on video, the state civil rights division investigated, and the referee was suspended for two years. That incident is part of why the length rule is gone. But five years of articles, forum threads, and coaching folklore were written under the old rule, and they still outnumber the current information. Date-check anything you read about wrestling hair rules, including this page, which we dated for exactly that reason.
College, for contrast
NCAA women's wrestling is freestyle, under its own rulebook, and that book contains no hair length restriction at all. Its entire treatment of hair covering is one sentence allowing a nylon stretch cap under the ear guard for wrestlers who cover their hair by culture or personal taste. Ear guards themselves are mandatory in college women's wrestling any time live wrestling happens, which is stricter than high school. Hair pulling is illegal there too.
Sources: NFHS rules changes documents and press releases for 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2022-23, the NJSIAA August 2022 rules memo, the 2025-26 NFHS rules interpretations, and the 2025-26 NCAA women's wrestling rule book. The 2025-26 NFHS changes list contains no hair amendments, so the 2022-23 state of the rule is current as of this page's date.
What we could not confirm
- The verbatim text of the current NFHS rule book. It is a paid publication. Everything here is assembled from NFHS's own published rules-changes announcements through 2025-26, which is why we say "as amended through 2022-23" rather than quoting the book.
- Whether the weigh-in procedure for hair covers still appears in the current book word for word. NFHS codified it in 2019-20 and no change document since has removed it, but we could not read the current text.
- A wrestling-specific religious headwear clause. The accommodation language we cite is NFHS multi-sport guidance; wrestling is not on the list of sports whose rulebooks name religious headwear explicitly.