How many points are needed for the first extra life in Pac-Man? The answer is 10,000 points.
In the original arcade game, Pac-Man awards a bonus life when the player's score reaches 10,000 points. This extra life appears as an additional Pac-Man icon below the maze, alongside any lives already remaining. The bonus is automatic: players do not need to collect a special object or activate a separate feature.
Most points come from clearing the maze's dots, which are worth 10 points each, and the four Power Pellets, worth 50 points each. Fruit bonuses provide much larger rewards, beginning with the cherry at 100 points and increasing through later rounds. Eating frightened ghosts in sequence can also rapidly boost a score, with the four possible ghost values totaling 3,000 points per Power Pellet cycle.
A common mix-up is confusing the extra-life threshold with later bonus-life settings. Some ports, arcade revisions, and home versions use different thresholds or disable bonus lives through settings. For the standard original Pac-Man arcade rules, however, 10,000 points is the canonical first extra-life milestone.