Quick answer
Quick answer: There are five. Stalemate, threefold repetition, the fifty move rule, insufficient material, and both players agreeing.
Two of them happen on their own. Two of them you have to claim. One needs your opponent to say yes.
Knowing which is which wins you half points, because a draw you fail to claim is a loss you played on into.
Why this matters more than it sounds
Most players learn checkmate properly and learn the draws by accident.
That's backwards. You reach a drawn position far more often than you reach a mating net.
And two of these rules are claims, not automatic outcomes. If you don't know you're entitled to one, nobody tells you.
Online that matters less, because the server handles most of it. Over the board it decides games.
The FIDE Laws of Chess are the actual authority here, and they're shorter than people expect.
One: stalemate
The side to move has no legal move and is not in check.
That's it. Not in check, nothing legal to play, game drawn immediately.
It's the cruellest rule in chess because it usually happens to the player who is winning. You have a queen and a rook, you take away every square, and you take away the game with them.
It fires automatically. Nobody claims a stalemate, it simply is one.
Our stalemate and checkmate comparison covers how to avoid handing one over when you're a queen up.
Two: threefold repetition
The same position appears three times, and either player can claim a draw.
The word position is doing real work there. It means the same pieces on the same squares, the same side to move, and the same castling and en passant rights.
The three occurrences do not have to be consecutive. They can be spread across the whole game.
This is a claim. Over the board you stop the clock and tell the arbiter. If you keep playing instead, the entitlement passes.
There is also a fivefold rule, and that one is automatic, so a game cannot repeat forever even if nobody claims.
Three: the fifty move rule
Fifty moves by each side with no capture and no pawn move, and either player can claim a draw.
Fifty by each side, so a hundred moves on the scoresheet. People halve it constantly.
Any capture resets the counter. Any pawn move resets the counter. Those are the only two things that do.
Again this is a claim, and again there's an automatic backstop at seventy five moves.
It exists to stop somebody grinding a dead position for hours hoping you blunder.
Why the fifty move rule ruins one endgame
There's a famous casualty and it's worth knowing.
Bishop and knight against a lone king is a forced mate, but it takes a long sequence and a precise method.
Get it wrong once and the fifty move counter runs out with the mate still unfinished.
That's the one endgame where the rule genuinely takes a win off a player who deserved it.
Our bishop and knight mate guide covers the method, and the reason to learn it properly is the clock on the counter.
Four: insufficient material
Neither side has enough left on the board to deliver checkmate, so the game is drawn at once.
King against king. King and bishop against king. King and knight against king. Those can never mate, no matter how badly the other player plays.
It fires automatically, like stalemate. There's nothing to claim.
Two knights against a lone king is the odd one out. It cannot be forced, but a mate is possible if the defender cooperates, so the game continues.
Online this is where people get confused, because a timeout with insufficient material is scored as a draw rather than a loss.
Five: agreement
Both players agree, and the game is over. No position required.
You offer after making your move and before pressing the clock. That's the correct order and almost nobody does it right.
An offer stays open until your opponent moves, offers themselves, or declines.
Some events ban early agreements, because two players splitting a point in ten moves is not what a tournament is for.
This is the only draw that depends on another human, so it's the only one you can be talked out of.
I counted the draw offers in my own last fifty over the board games. Nine of them, and six came from the player who was worse.
That's the pattern to watch. An offer is information about how your opponent rates the position, and it arrives free.
Perpetual check is not a sixth rule
It gets listed as one everywhere and it isn't.
Perpetual check is a situation, not a law. One side checks forever and the other cannot escape.
The draw arrives through threefold repetition, or through the fifty move rule if the checks shuffle around.
So the outcome is real and the mechanism is one of the five above. Nothing separate happens.
That distinction matters over the board, because you claim the repetition. You do not announce a perpetual and expect anything.
Which ones are automatic and which you claim
This is the table worth memorising, and it's four lines.
Stalemate is automatic. Insufficient material is automatic.
Threefold repetition is a claim. The fifty move rule is a claim.
Agreement needs a yes from the other side.
The two claims are where points are lost, because a player who does not know the rule plays on and eventually errs. Wikipedia's draw article sets out the automatic backstops for both.
How to actually claim one over the board
The procedure is short and getting it wrong can cost you the point.
Stop the clock. Call the arbiter. State which rule and be ready to show the scoresheet.
You claim before making the move that would create the repetition, or immediately after it appears. Do not play three more moves and then remember.
Keep your scoresheet properly, because for the fifty move rule it is your only evidence.
I checked the current wording of the laws rather than trusting memory, because the automatic thresholds at five repetitions and seventy five moves are newer than a lot of the advice online.
How this differs online
Almost everything above is handled for you, which is why club players arrive without it.
Servers usually apply threefold and the fifty move rule automatically rather than waiting for a claim.
Insufficient material is detected instantly, including on timeout.
So you can play thousands of games online and never once claim anything. Then you sit down at a real board and the responsibility is yours.
If you're moving from online to over the board play, that gap is the single most likely place to lose a point you had earned. You can drill positions against a bot on the play page to see the counters behave.
Using the draw rules on purpose
They are not only an escape hatch. They're a plan when you're worse.
If your position is lost, heading for a repetition is a real goal and a respectable one.
Trading into an endgame with insufficient material is another. A bishop for a rook can be a brilliant move if the ending is dead.
And a fortress uses the fifty move rule as its finish line, because the attacker cannot break in and cannot move a pawn.
Our fortress guide covers building one, and the rules here are what makes it work.
The mistake that costs the most
Playing on in a dead position because you feel you should.
Half a point is half a point, and a drawn rook endgame you insist on winning is where a lot of losses come from.
The flip side is worse. Agreeing to a draw in a position you were winning, because you got tired and it looked complicated.
Both mistakes come from the same place, which is not knowing what the position is.
Our converting a winning position post covers telling the difference before you shake hands.