There is no single pole competition dress code. That is the first and most useful thing to understand, because dancers routinely arrive at their first competition having read a rule from a different organization's rulebook and assumed it applied. Costume requirements are set by the organization running the event, they differ from each other in ways that matter, and in at least one case the same organization runs events with deliberately different rules. The rulebook that governs you is the one for the specific competition you entered, and nothing on this page replaces reading it.
What follows is what a few US organizations publish, with the differences left visible rather than smoothed over.
What gets you disqualified rather than deducted?
The clearest line in the documents is the one between a costume that loses you points and a costume that ends your day.
The US Pole Sports Federation puts the hard boundary in its conduct rules: "No nudity, no G-strings or thongs, and no pasties are allowed. Violation of this requirement will lead to immediate disqualification." That is unambiguous, and it is worth noting where it sits. It is filed under conduct alongside rules about language, alcohol and behavior toward other competitors, not under costume scoring. The federation treats coverage as a condition of being allowed to compete rather than as a scoring dimension.
For a sport federation this is consistent with the rest of its framing. USPSF competitions run under divisions called Amateur, Competitive and Para Athlete, with age categories that start at Varsity for ages six to nine and run through Junior A, Junior B, Senior, Masters 40+ and Masters 50+. The minimum age for any athlete is six. A rulebook that has to work for a nine-year-old and a fifty-year-old in the same weekend is going to draw its coverage line in one place and keep it there.
What does a costume deduction actually cost?
Deductions are smaller and more specific than most first-time competitors expect. The USPSF scoring summary lists a head judge deduction of "-3 points for incorrect attire (jewelry, undergarments visible)."
Two details in that parenthesis are worth pulling out. The first is jewelry, which is easy to forget on the day and is not a coverage question at all. The second is "undergarments visible," which is the rule that catches people who are fully covered by any reasonable standard but are wearing something under the costume that shows. A bra strap that has migrated is an attire deduction under this wording even though nothing prohibited is exposed.
On the other side of the ledger, the same scoring sheet awards up to 2 points for "Costume Matches Theme." So on a USPSF artistic scoresheet the costume can move your score in both directions, and the downside is larger than the upside.
Do the rules change by event, even inside one organization?
They do, and this is the detail that trips up dancers who competed with one promoter and assume the next event runs the same way.
The Pole Sport Organization runs a separate event series called PSO After Dark, and its announcement is explicit that the costume rules are different on purpose: "To match the sexy theme, we're also removing music content restrictions and relaxing the costuming rules to allow for thong and pasties." The categories exclusive to that series are named SHADOWBANNED, ALL FLOOR ALL DAY, RX (Russian Exotic) and DTF (DRIP, TEASE, AND FLOW).
Read that against the USPSF rule above and you have the whole picture in two sentences. A thong is an immediate disqualification at one organization's events and an explicitly permitted relaxation at another organization's late-night series. Neither is wrong. They are different competitions with different audiences and different governing documents, and the only mistake available to you is assuming one rule travels.
It is also worth noting what the After Dark announcement does not say. It does not address heels, general coverage minimums, or how any other rule differs. If you are competing in that series, the relaxation you can rely on is the one printed.
What else in the rulebook affects what you can wear or carry?
Costume rules do not stop at the garment. USPSF's prohibited props list rules out actual or realistic-looking weapons, liquids of any kind, glass, sand and glitter, sharp implements, fire, anything that leaves a residue or mess onstage, and any prop that could be used as a fully or partially weight-bearing apparatus.
Glitter is the one that matters most for costume decisions, because it is frequently part of a costume rather than a prop. A garment that sheds glitter onto the stage is a problem for the competitor who follows you, and a rule against residue onstage does not care whether the residue arrived as a prop or as a bodice.
The same logic applies to anything that can detach. Beads, sequins and feathers work loose under the kind of load a pole routine puts on a garment, and once they are on the floor they fall under the same residue problem. Whatever is on the costume has to survive the routine still attached.
How should you actually choose a competition costume?
The honest process is boring, and it is mostly reading.
Start with the specific rulebook for your specific competition, and read the conduct section as well as the costume section, because as USPSF's rules show, the hardest coverage rule can live under conduct. Then read the scoresheet, because that is where you find out whether costume is scored at all and what an attire deduction is worth against everything else you are being judged on.
Then test it. Not in front of a mirror standing up, but inverted, in the actual routine, at performance speed. Almost every costume problem in competition is a movement problem rather than a design problem: a piece that sits perfectly upright and does not stay put through an aerial invert, a strap that migrates, an undergarment that becomes visible in exactly one transition. A garment that passes the rulebook standing still and fails it in your second eight-count has still failed it.
And take the jewelry off. It is the cheapest three points anyone has ever lost.