Phone Number Regex — Validate and Extract Phone Numbers

Phone number regex is notoriously tricky — formats vary by country, carrier, and context. A regex can enforce basic structure, but production phone validation requires a library like libphonenumber.

Use the Email & URL Extractor to extract contact information from text.

US phone number regex

// Matches common US formats:
// (555) 123-4567  555-123-4567  555.123.4567  5551234567  +1 555 123 4567
const US_PHONE = /^(\+1\s?)?(\(?\d{3}\)?[\s.\-]?)(\d{3}[\s.\-]?\d{4})$/;

// Test:
['(555) 123-4567', '555-123-4567', '5551234567', '+1 555 123 4567'].forEach(p => {
  console.log(p, US_PHONE.test(p));
});

// Extract digits only (for storage):
function normalizePhone(phone) {
  const digits = phone.replace(/\D/g, '');
  // US: strip leading 1 if 11 digits
  if (digits.length === 11 && digits[0] === '1') return digits.slice(1);
  return digits;
}

normalizePhone('(555) 123-4567')  // '5551234567'
normalizePhone('+1-555-123-4567') // '5551234567'

E.164 international format

E.164 is the standard format for international phone numbers: + followed by country code and subscriber number, no spaces or dashes, max 15 digits.

// E.164 validation:
const E164_REGEX = /^\+[1-9]\d{1,14}$/;

E164_REGEX.test('+15551234567')    // true (US)
E164_REGEX.test('+447911123456')   // true (UK)
E164_REGEX.test('+33612345678')    // true (France)
E164_REGEX.test('+1234')           // true (could be valid, short number)
E164_REGEX.test('15551234567')     // false (missing +)
E164_REGEX.test('+1555123456789012') // false (too long)

International phone extraction from text

const PHONE_PATTERNS = [
  // E.164 international
  /\+[1-9]\d{1,14}/g,
  // US format
  /(?:\+1[\s\-.]?)?\(?\d{3}\)?[\s\-.]?\d{3}[\s\-.]?\d{4}/g,
  // UK: +44 7911 123456 or 07911 123456
  /(?:\+44|0)[\s]?\d{4}[\s]?\d{6}/g,
];

function extractPhoneNumbers(text) {
  const found = new Set();
  for (const pattern of PHONE_PATTERNS) {
    const matches = text.match(pattern) || [];
    matches.forEach(m => found.add(m.trim()));
  }
  return [...found];
}

const text = 'Call us: (555) 123-4567 or +44 7911 123456 or +33612345678';
extractPhoneNumbers(text);
// ['(555) 123-4567', '+44 7911 123456', '+33612345678']

Python phone extraction

import re

# Broad pattern for extraction (then validate):
PHONE_PATTERN = re.compile(
    r'(\+?[\d\s\-\.\(\)]{7,20})',
    re.VERBOSE
)

# E.164 only:
E164_PATTERN = re.compile(r'\+[1-9]\d{1,14}\b')

def extract_phones(text: str) -> list[str]:
    return E164_PATTERN.findall(text)

# For production: use phonenumbers library
import phonenumbers

def extract_phones_from_text(text: str, region='US') -> list[str]:
    results = []
    for match in phonenumbers.PhoneNumberMatcher(text, region):
        formatted = phonenumbers.format_number(
            match.number,
            phonenumbers.PhoneNumberFormat.E164
        )
        results.append(formatted)
    return results

text = "Call +1 555-123-4567 or (800) 555-0199 for support"
extract_phones_from_text(text)
# ['+15551234567', '+18005550199']

Why regex isn’t enough

// This passes regex but isn't a real number:
'+12345678901'  // US: area code 234 doesn't exist

// Use google-libphonenumber for full validation:
import { PhoneNumberUtil } from 'google-libphonenumber';
const phoneUtil = PhoneNumberUtil.getInstance();

function isValidPhone(number, regionCode = 'US') {
  try {
    const parsed = phoneUtil.parseAndKeepRawInput(number, regionCode);
    return phoneUtil.isValidNumber(parsed);
  } catch {
    return false;
  }
}

isValidPhone('+15551234567')  // false (555 is fictional)
isValidPhone('+16502530000')  // true (Google's number)

// Format to E.164:
function toE164(number, region = 'US') {
  try {
    const parsed = phoneUtil.parseAndKeepRawInput(number, region);
    return phoneUtil.format(parsed, PNF.E164);
  } catch {
    return null;
  }
}

Input masking (UI)

// Apply US phone mask as user types:
function maskUSPhone(value) {
  const digits = value.replace(/\D/g, '').slice(0, 10);
  if (digits.length <= 3) return digits;
  if (digits.length <= 6) return `(${digits.slice(0,3)}) ${digits.slice(3)}`;
  return `(${digits.slice(0,3)}) ${digits.slice(3,6)}-${digits.slice(6)}`;
}

// Usage in React:
<input
  value={phone}
  onChange={e => setPhone(maskUSPhone(e.target.value))}
  placeholder="(555) 123-4567"
  type="tel"
/>

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