UNO rules: how to play and how to score

UNO quick rules

The goal

Be the first to get rid of all your cards: you win the hand. For a longer game, the rules suggest keeping score over several hands, up to 500.

Setting up a hand

A dealer deals 7 cards to each player. The rest forms the Draw Pile; flip the top card to start the Discard Pile, and if it’s an Action Card, flip the next one. The player to the dealer’s left goes first, clockwise.

Your turn

Play one card onto the Discard Pile: same color, number or symbol. Wild cards match anything. With no match, draw a card, and play it if it matches. You may also draw instead of playing.

Action Cards

Draw Two makes the next player draw two cards and lose their turn. Reverse reverses the direction of play. Skip makes the next player lose their turn.

Wild cards

A Wild matches anything and you choose the color. A Wild Draw Four also makes the next player draw four, but only if you have no card matching the Discard Pile’s color. Wild Swap Hands swaps your hand with an opponent’s. Wild Customizable cards apply the rule written on them.

Challenging a Wild Draw Four

The target draws four cards, or challenges. If they challenge and the player had the color, or a Wild, that player draws four. Otherwise, the challenger draws six and loses their turn.

Calling UNO

The moment you have one card left, yell UNO. If someone beats you to it before the next player takes their turn, you draw two cards.

End of a hand

The hand ends as soon as a player plays their final card. Shuffle and play again; if the Draw Pile runs out mid-hand, reshuffle the Discard Pile.

Beginner traps

Playing a Wild Draw Four while holding the Discard Pile’s color, or another Wild, invites a challenge. You only play one card per turn. And yell UNO in time.

How to score UNO

Who scores

If you keep score, only the winner of the hand scores: the value of the cards left in their opponents’ hands.

Number cards

Face value: a 7 is worth 7 points, a 0 is worth nothing.

Draw Two, Reverse, Skip

20 points each.

Every Wild card

Wild, Wild Draw Four, Wild Swap Hands and Wild Customizable: 50 points each. Rules before 2022 counted 40 for the special Wild cards.

End of the game

The first player to reach 500 points wins.

Worked example

Emma plays her last card. Leo is left with an 8, a 3 and a Reverse: 8 + 3 + 20 = 31 points. Mia holds a Wild Draw Four and a 5: 50 + 5 = 55 points. Emma scores 31 + 55 = 86 points; Leo and Mia score nothing.

Common mistakes

• Scoring your own leftover cards: only the winner of the hand scores.
• Forgetting that Action Cards are worth 20 and Wilds 50: they make the big scores.
• Counting 40 for Wild Swap Hands under the current rules: every Wild is worth 50.
• UNO Flip, UNO Show ’Em No Mercy and other boxes have their own rules: check yours.

How to set up UNO

Setup takes a minute, and you redo it every hand.