The age grid is the thing that decides which divisions your athlete is eligible for. Most of the confusion around it comes from one assumption that feels obviously true and is not: that it works off how old your child is. It does not.
Birth year, not age
Eligibility is set by birth year, not by age on a particular date. Nothing changes on your athlete’s birthday. Two athletes born eleven months apart can be in the same eligibility group, and two born a few weeks apart can be in different ones, because what matters is the year on the birth certificate.
Once you know that, most of the arguments in the pickup line resolve themselves. The question is never “how old is she in March”. It is “what year was she born”.
Split years
Some divisions do not use a whole birth year at the edges. Their top or bottom ages are split years— the year is divided, so being born in a given year is not on its own the whole answer for that division. If your athlete sits at the boundary of a division, this is the thing to check rather than assume.
U Format divisions
Divisions in the U Format carry a bottom age as well as a top one. The name tells you the ceiling; the floor is a separate rule, and it is easy to read past.
What is changing for the 2026–2027 season
Structurally, nothing. USASF has confirmed there are no changes for 2026–2027: the structure of the grid holds, the birth years move forward by one year, and the top and bottom age limits for each division stay consistent across all divisions — including Flex and Non-Tumbling.
That is genuinely good news for planning. A season where the framework is stable is a season where last year’s understanding still applies, shifted by one.
Where to actually look it up
The grid itself is USASF’s, and it is the authoritative source — not this page, and not any summary of it. We deliberately do not reproduce it here: it is copyright-protected, USASF’s terms ask members not to post it, and a second-hand copy of a table like this one is exactly the kind of thing that goes quietly out of date and sends a family to the wrong division.
Read the current grid, in full, from USASF: usasf.net/rules. If you are unsure how it applies to your athlete, your gym reads this grid every season and is the right first ask.
When a result is recorded, the division it was earned in is kept on the athlete’s own record rather than only the gym’s — so years later you can still see which division she actually competed in, without anyone having to remember.
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