WCA inspection rules explained — 15 seconds, +2, DNF
If you’ve ever timed a Rubik’s cube solve and seen “+2” appear out of nowhere, that’s the inspection rule kicking in. It’s one of those things every speedcuber learns by osmosis at a competition, but no one explains in a paragraph anywhere. Here’s the paragraph.
The rule
Before each solve at a WCA competition, you get 15 seconds of inspection — time to look at the cube, plan your first few moves, maybe rotate it to see all sides. You can hold it; you can’t turn any faces.
When you start the solve, the inspection timer stops and the solve timer starts. If you go over 15 seconds during inspection:
- At 15.00 seconds, you incur a +2 penalty. Your final time has 2 seconds added to it.
- At 17.00 seconds, the solve is a DNF (Did Not Finish). It doesn’t count toward your average.
These are absolute thresholds. There’s no grace window. The judge’s job is to call them out, and good timing software automates them.
Why 15 seconds?
The number’s been 15 for as long as the WCA has existed. It’s roughly the amount of time a competent cuber needs to inspect the cube, plan a cross plus maybe an F2L pair, and commit to a solution. Fast cubers finish inspection in 7-8 seconds. Slower cubers (the +2 crowd) use every last frame.
The rule exists to keep events moving and to prevent the strategy of “stare at the cube for a minute, work out a near-optimal solution, solve it in 4 moves.” That would be impressive but it wouldn’t be speedcubing.
What counts as “starting the timer”
This is where regulation A4 gets specific. At a stackmat:
- Both hands must be flat on the timer pad with palms down.
- The timer’s start LED has to be green (you’ve held both hands steady long enough for the timer to arm).
- You lift your hands; the timer starts.
That “hands flat, palms down” position is what swift detects with a webcam instead of a pressure pad. Same rule, different sensor.
What counts as “stopping the timer”
Symmetric: both hands back to flat on the pad (or in swift’s case, back to palms-down in the camera frame). The timer stops, the result is recorded, and any pending inspection penalty is applied.
Common ways to lose time you weren’t expecting
- Drop the cube during inspection. Doesn’t reset the clock. Pick it up and keep going, but you’ve burned a couple seconds.
- Start before the timer is green. Counts as a false start. At a competition the judge tells you to restart the inspection. In a practice timer this can manifest as the timer not registering.
- Look at your hands during inspection instead of the cube. Not a penalty, just a tip — track your gaze.
DNFs that aren’t about time
A DNF isn’t just for going over 17 seconds. Other things that DNF a solve:
- Putting the cube down with even one piece misaligned (regulation 10f). Two layers misaligned by more than 45° counts as not solved.
- Letting go of the cube during a solve in a way the judge interprets as “the cube was put down.”
- Disturbing the cube after stopping the timer (a “post-solve” DNF).
For practice this matters less. For competition it matters a lot — people lose averages over a misaligned U layer.
How swift handles it
When you start inspection in swift (a quick spacebar press), a 15 second countdown begins. At 8 seconds the app says “8 seconds” out loud. At 12 it says “12 seconds.” At 15 the +2 lights up. At 17 the solve is automatically DNF’d and you’re sent to stopped.
You don’t have to think about any of this. You just inspect, grip the cube, and solve. If you blow inspection, the penalty is already attached to the result.
The full regulations are at worldcubeassociation.org/regulations if you want the canonical wording — Article 4 covers timekeeping in detail.