In all major tournaments, either in Europe and the USA, including the World Cup and the Asia Pacific Cup, the single elimination format is the basic tournament format. This is the accepted international standard of a dart tournament format.
The single elimination format is where a single loss will eliminate you from the tournament. This format facilitates a faster running of the tournament especially for multiple events in a single day.

The first major tournament in the Philippines to use the single elimination format in all events was the 1st Darterong Pinoy in 1998, organized by the NDFP.

Weekly pub tournaments and the single day weekend dart tournaments use the double elimination format. Double elimination format is rarely seen in major tournaments in the rest of the world except in the Philippines.

The double elimination format is where the player loses twice before he is knocked out of the tournament. All winners are grouped in the winner’s bracket and the losers go down to the loser’s bracket. The last remaining players in the winner and loser’s brackets play for the championship. The player in the winner’s bracket has the twice to beat advantage. The winner of the loser’s bracket has to beat the winner of the winner’s bracket twice to win the championship.

The double elimination format is almost twice longer compared to the single elimination format.

In a round robin format, teams or players play all teams or players in their group. This format is basic in international team competitions such as the World Cup and Asia Pacific Cup. Countries are drawn into groups of four and the top two (2) teams advance to the next round. Then, the single elimination format is utilized to determine the team champions.

The round robin format is also utilized in selecting individual players for country representation. Players are drawn into groups of eight or four and the top players advance to the next round after a round robin play.

This is likewise the standard format in dart leagues wherein all teams play round robin versus all teams in their respective league groupings.

This is the format wherein the last two (2) ranked teams or players play for the right to compete against the next least ranked team or player. In this format, top four (4) players are ranked from numbers 1 to 4 based on the number of wins. The number 4 ranked player plays the number 3 ranked player and the winner plays the number 2 player and the winner plays the number 1 player for the championship.

In some dart leagues, the stepladder format is used among the top eight or top four ranked teams.