The International Jousting Association has a worldwide minimum armour standard based on the basic armour used by knights in the mid to late 13th century.  

This consists of a harness consisting of a padded gambeson or aketon , padded cuisses for the upper leg with integral rigid polyns for the knee, a steel mail hauberk , a steel lined coat-of plates , a pair of leather gauntlets , a steel mail coif with padded liner and a full face steel helmet .

Jousters in the IJA are free to use armour from any specific period that jousting was practiced so in the IJA we allow any historical style of armour provided that it has at least the protective qualities of the minimum armour standard above. Most IJA groups specialise in a narrower period of history to portray so in the IJA we have groups who cover the era of mail armour while at the other end of the spectrum we have groups that portray the age of full metal plate armour.

Each item of armour must be as historically accurate as possible in terms of its appearance, function and the materials that it is constructed from. Therefore the IJA does not allow any modern substitutes including knitted string mail armour, fibreglass or plastics.

Riders in the skill-at-arms and foot crew are not required to wear armour and instead are required to wear an appropriate light military costume or civilian costume from the period that they or their group is portraying.