[regex] How to validate phone numbers using regex

I'm trying to put together a comprehensive regex to validate phone numbers. Ideally it would handle international formats, but it must handle US formats, including the following:

• 1-234-567-8901
• 1-234-567-8901 x1234
• 1-234-567-8901 ext1234
• 1 (234) 567-8901
• 1.234.567.8901
• 1/234/567/8901
• 12345678901

I'll answer with my current attempt, but I'm hoping somebody has something better and/or more elegant.

For anyone interested in doing something similar with Irish mobile phone numbers, here's a straightforward way of accomplishing it:

http://ilovenicii.com/?p=87

PHP

<?php
$pattern = "/^(083|086|085|086|087)\d{7}$/";
$phone = "087343266";

if (preg_match($pattern,$phone)) echo "Match";
else echo "Not match";

There is also a JQuery solution on that link.

EDIT:

jQuery solution:

    $(function(){
    //original field values
    var field_values = {
            //id        :  value
            'url'       : 'url',
            'yourname'  : 'yourname',
            'email'     : 'email',
            'phone'     : 'phone'
    };

        var url =$("input#url").val();
        var yourname =$("input#yourname").val();
        var email =$("input#email").val();
        var phone =$("input#phone").val();


    //inputfocus
    $('input#url').inputfocus({ value: field_values['url'] });
    $('input#yourname').inputfocus({ value: field_values['yourname'] });
    $('input#email').inputfocus({ value: field_values['email'] }); 
    $('input#phone').inputfocus({ value: field_values['phone'] });



    //reset progress bar
    $('#progress').css('width','0');
    $('#progress_text').html('0% Complete');

    //first_step
    $('form').submit(function(){ return false; });
    $('#submit_first').click(function(){
        //remove classes
        $('#first_step input').removeClass('error').removeClass('valid');

        //ckeck if inputs aren't empty
        var fields = $('#first_step input[type=text]');
        var error = 0;
        fields.each(function(){
            var value = $(this).val();
            if( value.length<12 || value==field_values[$(this).attr('id')] ) {
                $(this).addClass('error');
                $(this).effect("shake", { times:3 }, 50);

                error++;
            } else {
                $(this).addClass('valid');
            }
        });        

        if(!error) {
            if( $('#password').val() != $('#cpassword').val() ) {
                    $('#first_step input[type=password]').each(function(){
                        $(this).removeClass('valid').addClass('error');
                        $(this).effect("shake", { times:3 }, 50);
                    });

                    return false;
            } else {   
                //update progress bar
                $('#progress_text').html('33% Complete');
                $('#progress').css('width','113px');

                //slide steps
                $('#first_step').slideUp();
                $('#second_step').slideDown();     
            }               
        } else return false;
    });

    //second section
    $('#submit_second').click(function(){
        //remove classes
        $('#second_step input').removeClass('error').removeClass('valid');

        var emailPattern = /^[a-zA-Z0-9._-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9.-]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,4}$/;  
        var fields = $('#second_step input[type=text]');
        var error = 0;
        fields.each(function(){
            var value = $(this).val();
            if( value.length<1 || value==field_values[$(this).attr('id')] || ( $(this).attr('id')=='email' && !emailPattern.test(value) ) ) {
                $(this).addClass('error');
                $(this).effect("shake", { times:3 }, 50);

                error++;
            } else {
                $(this).addClass('valid');
            }


        function validatePhone(phone) {
        var a = document.getElementById(phone).value;
        var filter = /^[0-9-+]+$/;
            if (filter.test(a)) {
                return true;
            }
            else {
                return false;
            }
        }

        $('#phone').blur(function(e) {
            if (validatePhone('txtPhone')) {
                $('#spnPhoneStatus').html('Valid');
                $('#spnPhoneStatus').css('color', 'green');
            }
            else {
                $('#spnPhoneStatus').html('Invalid');
            $('#spnPhoneStatus').css('color', 'red');
            }
        });

     });

        if(!error) {
                //update progress bar
                $('#progress_text').html('66% Complete');
                $('#progress').css('width','226px');

                //slide steps
                $('#second_step').slideUp();
                $('#fourth_step').slideDown();     
        } else return false;

    });


    $('#submit_second').click(function(){
        //update progress bar
        $('#progress_text').html('100% Complete');
        $('#progress').css('width','339px');

        //prepare the fourth step
        var fields = new Array(
            $('#url').val(),
            $('#yourname').val(),
            $('#email').val(),
            $('#phone').val()

        );
        var tr = $('#fourth_step tr');
        tr.each(function(){
            //alert( fields[$(this).index()] )
            $(this).children('td:nth-child(2)').html(fields[$(this).index()]);
        });

        //slide steps
        $('#third_step').slideUp();
        $('#fourth_step').slideDown();            
    });


    $('#submit_fourth').click(function(){

        url =$("input#url").val();
        yourname =$("input#yourname").val();
        email =$("input#email").val();
        phone =$("input#phone").val();

        //send information to server
        var dataString = 'url='+ url + '&yourname=' + yourname + '&email=' + email + '&phone=' + phone;  



        alert (dataString);//return false;  
            $.ajax({  
                type: "POST",  
                url: "http://clients.socialnetworkingsolutions.com/infobox/contact/",  
                data: "url="+url+"&yourname="+yourname+"&email="+email+'&phone=' + phone,
                cache: false,
                success: function(data) {  
                    console.log("form submitted");
                    alert("success");
                }
                });  
        return false;

   });


    //back button
    $('.back').click(function(){
        var container = $(this).parent('div'),
        previous  = container.prev();

        switch(previous.attr('id')) {
            case 'first_step' : $('#progress_text').html('0% Complete');
                  $('#progress').css('width','0px');
                       break;
            case 'second_step': $('#progress_text').html('33% Complete');
                  $('#progress').css('width','113px');
                       break;

            case 'third_step' : $('#progress_text').html('66% Complete');
                  $('#progress').css('width','226px');
                       break;

        default: break;
    }

    $(container).slideUp();
    $(previous).slideDown();
});


});

Source.

I would also suggest looking at the "libphonenumber" Google Library. I know it is not regex but it does exactly what you want.

For example, it will recognize that:

15555555555

is a possible number but not a valid number. It also supports countries outside the US.

Highlights of functionality:

• Parsing/formatting/validating phone numbers for all countries/regions of the world.
• getNumberType - gets the type of the number based on the number itself; able to distinguish Fixed-line, Mobile, Toll-free, Premium Rate, Shared Cost, VoIP and Personal Numbers (whenever feasible).
• isNumberMatch - gets a confidence level on whether two numbers could be the same.
• getExampleNumber/getExampleNumberByType - provides valid example numbers for all countries/regions, with the option of specifying which type of example phone number is needed.
• isPossibleNumber - quickly guessing whether a number is a possible phonenumber by using only the length information, much faster than a full validation.
• isValidNumber - full validation of a phone number for a region using length and prefix information.
• AsYouTypeFormatter - formats phone numbers on-the-fly when users enter each digit.
• findNumbers - finds numbers in text input.
• PhoneNumberOfflineGeocoder - provides geographical information related to a phone number.

Examples

The biggest problem with phone number validation is it is very culturally dependant.

• America
  • (408) 974–2042 is a valid US number
  • (999) 974–2042 is not a valid US number
• Australia
  • 0404 999 999 is a valid Australian number
  • (02) 9999 9999 is also a valid Australian number
  • (09) 9999 9999 is not a valid Australian number

A regular expression is fine for checking the format of a phone number, but it's not really going to be able to check the validity of a phone number.

I would suggest skipping a simple regular expression to test your phone number against, and using a library such as Google's libphonenumber (link to GitHub project).

Introducing libphonenumber!

Using one of your more complex examples, 1-234-567-8901 x1234, you get the following data out of libphonenumber (link to online demo):

Validation Results

Result from isPossibleNumber()  true
Result from isValidNumber()     true

Formatting Results:

E164 format                    +12345678901
Original format                (234) 567-8901 ext. 123
National format                (234) 567-8901 ext. 123
International format           +1 234-567-8901 ext. 123
Out-of-country format from US  1 (234) 567-8901 ext. 123
Out-of-country format from CH  00 1 234-567-8901 ext. 123

So not only do you learn if the phone number is valid (which it is), but you also get consistent phone number formatting in your locale.

As a bonus, libphonenumber has a number of datasets to check the validity of phone numbers, as well, so checking a number such as +61299999999 (the international version of (02) 9999 9999) returns as a valid number with formatting:

Validation Results

Result from isPossibleNumber()  true
Result from isValidNumber()     true

Formatting Results

E164 format                    +61299999999
Original format                61 2 9999 9999
National format                (02) 9999 9999
International format           +61 2 9999 9999
Out-of-country format from US  011 61 2 9999 9999
Out-of-country format from CH  00 61 2 9999 9999

libphonenumber also gives you many additional benefits, such as grabbing the location that the phone number is detected as being, and also getting the time zone information from the phone number:

PhoneNumberOfflineGeocoder Results
Location        Australia

PhoneNumberToTimeZonesMapper Results
Time zone(s)    [Australia/Sydney]

But the invalid Australian phone number ((09) 9999 9999) returns that it is not a valid phone number.

Validation Results

Result from isPossibleNumber()  true
Result from isValidNumber()     false

Google's version has code for Java and Javascript, but people have also implemented libraries for other languages that use the Google i18n phone number dataset:

• PHP: https://github.com/giggsey/libphonenumber-for-php
• Python: https://github.com/daviddrysdale/python-phonenumbers
• Ruby: https://github.com/sstephenson/global_phone
• C#: https://github.com/twcclegg/libphonenumber-csharp
• Objective-C: https://github.com/iziz/libPhoneNumber-iOS
• JavaScript: https://github.com/ruimarinho/google-libphonenumber
• Elixir: https://github.com/socialpaymentsbv/ex_phone_number

Unless you are certain that you are always going to be accepting numbers from one locale, and they are always going to be in one format, I would heavily suggest not writing your own code for this, and using libphonenumber for validating and displaying phone numbers.

Do a replace on formatting characters, then check the remaining for phone validity. In PHP,

 $replace = array( ' ', '-', '/', '(', ')', ',', '.' ); //etc; as needed
 preg_match( '/1?[0-9]{10}((ext|x)[0-9]{1,4})?/i', str_replace( $replace, '', $phone_num );

Breaking a complex regexp like this can be just as effective, but much more simple.

I wouldn't recomend using a regex for this.

Like the top answer, strip all the ugliness from the phone number, so that you're left with a string of numeric characters, with an 'x', if extensions are provided.

In Python:

Note: BAD_AREA_CODES comes from a text file that you can grab from on the web.

BAD_AREA_CODES = open('badareacodes.txt', 'r').read().split('\n')

def is_valid_phone(phone_number, country_code='US'):
    """for now, only US codes are handled"""
    if country_code:
        country_code = country_code.upper()

    #drop everything except 0-9 and 'x'
    phone_number = filter(lambda n: n.isdigit() or n == 'x', phone_number)

    ext = None
    check_ext = phone_number.split('x')
    if len(check_ext) > 1:
        #there's an extension. Check for errors.
        if len(check_ext) > 2:
            return False
        phone_number, ext = check_ext

    #we only accept 10 digit phone numbers.
    if len(phone_number) == 11 and phone_number[0] == '1':
        #international code
        phone_number = phone_number[1:]
    if len(phone_number) != 10:
        return False

    #area_code: XXXxxxxxxx 
    #head:      xxxXXXxxxx
    #tail:      xxxxxxXXXX
    area_code = phone_number[ :3]
    head      = phone_number[3:6]
    tail      = phone_number[6: ]

    if area_code in BAD_AREA_CODES:
        return False
    if head[0] == '1':
        return False
    if head[1:] == '11':
        return False

    #any other ideas?
    return True

This covers quite a bit. It's not a regex, but it does map to other languages pretty easily.

/\b(\d{3}[^\d]{0,2}\d{3}[^\d]{0,2}\d{4})\b/

Find String regex = "^\\+(?:[0-9] ?){6,14}[0-9]$";

helpful for international numbers.

As there is no language tag with this post, I'm gonna give a regex solution used within python.

The expression itself:

1[\s./-]?\(?[\d]+\)?[\s./-]?[\d]+[-/.]?[\d]+\s?[\d]+

When used within python:

import re

phonelist ="1-234-567-8901,1-234-567-8901 1234,1-234-567-8901 1234,1 (234) 567-8901,1.234.567.8901,1/234/567/8901,12345678901"

phonenumber = '\n'.join([phone for phone in re.findall(r'1[\s./-]?\(?[\d]+\)?[\s./-]?[\d]+[-/.]?[\d]+\s?[\d]+' ,phonelist)])
print(phonenumber)

Output:

1-234-567-8901
1-234-567-8901 1234
1-234-567-8901 1234
1 (234) 567-8901
1.234.567.8901
1/234/567/8901
12345678901

Note that stripping () characters does not work for a style of writing UK numbers that is common: +44 (0) 1234 567890 which means dial either the international number:
+441234567890
or in the UK dial 01234567890

Here's my best try so far. It handles the formats above but I'm sure I'm missing some other possible formats.

^\d?(?:(?:[\+]?(?:[\d]{1,3}(?:[ ]+|[\-.])))?[(]?(?:[\d]{3})[\-/)]?(?:[ ]+)?)?(?:[a-zA-Z2-9][a-zA-Z0-9 \-.]{6,})(?:(?:[ ]+|[xX]|(i:ext[\.]?)){1,2}(?:[\d]{1,5}))?$

After reading through these answers, it looks like there wasn't a straightforward regular expression that can parse through a bunch of text and pull out phone numbers in any format (including international with and without the plus sign).

Here's what I used for a client project recently, where we had to convert all phone numbers in any format to tel: links.

So far, it's been working with everything they've thrown at it, but if errors come up, I'll update this answer.

Regex:

/(\+*\d{1,})*([ |\(])*(\d{3})[^\d]*(\d{3})[^\d]*(\d{4})/

PHP function to replace all phone numbers with tel: links (in case anyone is curious):

function phoneToTel($number) {
    $return = preg_replace('/(\+*\d{1,})*([ |\(])*(\d{3})[^\d]*(\d{3})[^\d]*(\d{4})/', '<a href="tel:$1$3$4$5">$1 ($3) $4-$5</a>', $number); // includes international
    return $return;
}

Have you had a look over at RegExLib?

Entering US phone number brought back quite a list of possibilities.

Try this (It is for Indian mobile number validation):

if (!phoneNumber.matches("^[6-9]\\d{9}$")) {
  return false;
} else {
  return true;
}

I answered this question on another SO question before deciding to also include my answer as an answer on this thread, because no one was addressing how to require/not require items, just handing out regexs: Regex working wrong, matching unexpected things

From my post on that site, I've created a quick guide to assist anyone with making their own regex for their own desired phone number format, which I will caveat (like I did on the other site) that if you are too restrictive, you may not get the desired results, and there is no "one size fits all" solution to accepting all possible phone numbers in the world - only what you decide to accept as your format of choice. Use at your own risk.

Quick cheat sheet

• Start the expression: /^
• If you want to require a space, use: [\s] or \s
• If you want to require parenthesis, use: [(] and [)] . Using \( and \) is ugly and can make things confusing.
• If you want anything to be optional, put a ? after it
• If you want a hyphen, just type - or [-] . If you do not put it first or last in a series of other characters, though, you may need to escape it: \-
• If you want to accept different choices in a slot, put brackets around the options: [-.\s] will require a hyphen, period, or space. A question mark after the last bracket will make all of those optional for that slot.
• \d{3} : Requires a 3-digit number: 000-999. Shorthand for [0-9][0-9][0-9].
• [2-9] : Requires a digit 2-9 for that slot.
• (\+|1\s)? : Accept a "plus" or a 1 and a space (pipe character, |, is "or"), and make it optional. The "plus" sign must be escaped.
• If you want specific numbers to match a slot, enter them: [246] will require a 2, 4, or 6. (?:77|78) or [77|78] will require 77 or 78.
• $/ : End the expression

I was struggling with the same issue, trying to make my application future proof, but these guys got me going in the right direction. I'm not actually checking the number itself to see if it works or not, I'm just trying to make sure that a series of numbers was entered that may or may not have an extension.

Worst case scenario if the user had to pull an unformatted number from the XML file, they would still just type the numbers into the phone's numberpad 012345678x5, no real reason to keep it pretty. That kind of RegEx would come out something like this for me:

\d+ ?\w{0,9} ?\d+

• 01234467 extension 123456
• 01234567x123456
• 01234567890

I work for a market research company and we have to filter these types of input alllll the time. You're complicating it too much. Just strip the non-alphanumeric chars, and see if there's an extension.

For further analysis you can subscribe to one of many providers that will give you access to a database of valid numbers as well as tell you if they're landlines or mobiles, disconnected, etc. It costs money.

Here is what I use

function isValidTel ($tel) {
    preg_match('/^[\+]?[(]?[0-9]{3}[)]?[-\s\.]?[0-9]{3}[-\s\.]?[0-9]{4,6}$/im', $tel, $matches);
    return !! $matches;
}

Check it out in this regex tester https://www.phpliveregex.com/p/uld

If at all possible, I would recommend to have four separate fields—Area Code, 3-digit prefix, 4 digit part, extension—so that the user can input each part of the address separately, and you can verify each piece individually. That way you can not only make verification much easier, you can store your phone numbers in a more consistent format in the database.

Working example for Turkey, just change the

d{9}

according to your needs and start using it.

function validateMobile($phone)
{
    $pattern = "/^(05)\d{9}$/";
    if (!preg_match($pattern, $phone))
    {
        return false;
    }
    return true;
}

$phone = "0532486061";

if(!validateMobile($phone))
{
    echo 'Incorrect Mobile Number!';
}

$phone = "05324860614";
if(validateMobile($phone))
{
    echo 'Correct Mobile Number!';
}

If you're talking about form validation, the regexp to validate correct meaning as well as correct data is going to be extremely complex because of varying country and provider standards. It will also be hard to keep up to date.

I interpret the question as looking for a broadly valid pattern, which may not be internally consistent - for example having a valid set of numbers, but not validating that the trunk-line, exchange, etc. to the valid pattern for the country code prefix.

North America is straightforward, and for international I prefer to use an 'idiomatic' pattern which covers the ways in which people specify and remember their numbers:

^((((\(\d{3}\))|(\d{3}-))\d{3}-\d{4})|(\+?\d{2}((-| )\d{1,8}){1,5}))(( x| ext)\d{1,5}){0,1}$

The North American pattern makes sure that if one parenthesis is included both are. The international accounts for an optional initial '+' and country code. After that, you're in the idiom. Valid matches would be:

• (xxx)xxx-xxxx
• (xxx)-xxx-xxxx
• (xxx)xxx-xxxx x123
• 12 1234 123 1 x1111
• 12 12 12 12 12
• 12 1 1234 123456 x12345
• +12 1234 1234
• +12 12 12 1234
• +12 1234 5678
• +12 12345678

This may be biased as my experience is limited to North America, Europe and a small bit of Asia.

Here's a wonderful pattern that most closely matched the validation that I needed to achieve. I'm not the original author, but I think it's well worth sharing as I found this problem to be very complex and without a concise or widely useful answer.

The following regex will catch widely used number and character combinations in a variety of global phone number formats:

/^\s*(?:\+?(\d{1,3}))?([-. (]*(\d{3})[-. )]*)?((\d{3})[-. ]*(\d{2,4})(?:[-.x ]*(\d+))?)\s*$/gm

Positive:
+42 555.123.4567
+1-(800)-123-4567
+7 555 1234567
+7(926)1234567
(926) 1234567
+79261234567
926 1234567
9261234567
1234567
123-4567
123-89-01
495 1234567
469 123 45 67
89261234567
8 (926) 1234567
926.123.4567
415-555-1234
650-555-2345
(416)555-3456
202 555 4567
4035555678
1 416 555 9292

Negative:
926 3 4
8 800 600-APPLE

Original source: http://www.regexr.com/38pvb

I found this to work quite well:

^\(*\+*[1-9]{0,3}\)*-*[1-9]{0,3}[-. /]*\(*[2-9]\d{2}\)*[-. /]*\d{3}[-. /]*\d{4} *e*x*t*\.* *\d{0,4}$

It works for these number formats:

1-234-567-8901
1-234-567-8901 x1234
1-234-567-8901 ext1234
1 (234) 567-8901
1.234.567.8901
1/234/567/8901
12345678901
1-234-567-8901 ext. 1234
(+351) 282 433 5050

Make sure to use global AND multiline flags to make sure.

Link: http://www.regexr.com/3bp4b

.*

If the users want to give you their phone numbers, then trust them to get it right. If they do not want to give it to you then forcing them to enter a valid number will either send them to a competitor's site or make them enter a random string that fits your regex. I might even be tempted to look up the number of a premium rate horoscope hotline and enter that instead.

I would also consider any of the following as valid entries on a web site:

"123 456 7890 until 6pm, then 098 765 4321"  
"123 456 7890 or try my mobile on 098 765 4321"  
"ex-directory - mind your own business"

If you just want to verify you don't have random garbage in the field (i.e., from form spammers) this regex should do nicely:

^[0-9+\(\)#\.\s\/ext-]+$

Note that it doesn't have any special rules for how many digits, or what numbers are valid in those digits, it just verifies that only digits, parenthesis, dashes, plus, space, pound, asterisk, period, comma, or the letters e, x, t are present.

It should be compatible with international numbers and localization formats. Do you foresee any need to allow square, curly, or angled brackets for some regions? (currently they aren't included).

If you want to maintain per digit rules (such as in US Area Codes and Prefixes (exchange codes) must fall in the range of 200-999) well, good luck to you. Maintaining a complex rule-set which could be outdated at any point in the future by any country in the world does not sound fun.

And while stripping all/most non-numeric characters may work well on the server side (especially if you are planning on passing these values to a dialer), you may not want to thrash the user's input during validation, particularly if you want them to make corrections in another field.

My gut feeling is reinforced by the amount of replies to this topic - that there is a virtually infinite number of solutions to this problem, none of which are going to be elegant.

Honestly, I would recommend you don't try to validate phone numbers. Even if you could write a big, hairy validator that would allow all the different legitimate formats, it would end up allowing pretty much anything even remotely resembling a phone number in the first place.

In my opinion, the most elegant solution is to validate a minimum length, nothing more.

It turns out that there's something of a spec for this, at least for North America, called the NANP.

You need to specify exactly what you want. What are legal delimiters? Spaces, dashes, and periods? No delimiter allowed? Can one mix delimiters (e.g., +0.111-222.3333)? How are extensions (e.g., 111-222-3333 x 44444) going to be handled? What about special numbers, like 911? Is the area code going to be optional or required?

Here's a regex for a 7 or 10 digit number, with extensions allowed, delimiters are spaces, dashes, or periods:

^(?:(?:\+?1\s*(?:[.-]\s*)?)?(?:\(\s*([2-9]1[02-9]|[2-9][02-8]1|[2-9][02-8][02-9])\s*\)|([2-9]1[02-9]|[2-9][02-8]1|[2-9][02-8][02-9]))\s*(?:[.-]\s*)?)?([2-9]1[02-9]|[2-9][02-9]1|[2-9][02-9]{2})\s*(?:[.-]\s*)?([0-9]{4})(?:\s*(?:#|x\.?|ext\.?|extension)\s*(\d+))?$

I believe the Number::Phone::US and Regexp::Common (particularly the source of Regexp::Common::URI::RFC2806) Perl modules could help.

The question should probably be specified in a bit more detail to explain the purpose of validating the numbers. For instance, 911 is a valid number in the US, but 911x isn't for any value of x. That's so that the phone company can calculate when you are done dialing. There are several variations on this issue. But your regex doesn't check the area code portion, so that doesn't seem to be a concern.

Like validating email addresses, even if you have a valid result you can't know if it's assigned to someone until you try it.

If you are trying to validate user input, why not normalize the result and be done with it? If the user puts in a number you can't recognize as a valid number, either save it as inputted or strip out undailable characters. The Number::Phone::Normalize Perl module could be a source of inspiration.

I found this to be something interesting. I have not tested it but it looks as if it would work

<?php
/*
string validate_telephone_number (string $number, array $formats)
*/

function validate_telephone_number($number, $formats)
{
$format = trim(ereg_replace("[0-9]", "#", $number));

return (in_array($format, $formats)) ? true : false;
}

/* Usage Examples */

// List of possible formats: You can add new formats or modify the existing ones

$formats = array('###-###-####', '####-###-###',
                 '(###) ###-###', '####-####-####',
                 '##-###-####-####', '####-####', '###-###-###',
                 '#####-###-###', '##########');

$number = '08008-555-555';

if(validate_telephone_number($number, $formats))
{
echo $number.' is a valid phone number.';
}

echo "<br />";

$number = '123-555-555';

if(validate_telephone_number($number, $formats))
{
echo $number.' is a valid phone number.';
}

echo "<br />";

$number = '1800-1234-5678';

if(validate_telephone_number($number, $formats))
{
echo $number.' is a valid phone number.';
}

echo "<br />";

$number = '(800) 555-123';

if(validate_telephone_number($number, $formats))
{
echo $number.' is a valid phone number.';
}

echo "<br />";

$number = '1234567890';

if(validate_telephone_number($number, $formats))
{
echo $number.' is a valid phone number.';
}
?>

    pattern="^[\d|\+|\(]+[\)|\d|\s|-]*[\d]$" 
    validateat="onsubmit"

Must end with a digit, can begin with ( or + or a digit, and may contain + - ( or )

You would probably be better off using a Masked Input for this. That way users can ONLY enter numbers and you can format however you see fit. I'm not sure if this is for a web application, but if it is there is a very click jQuery plugin that offers some options for doing this.

http://digitalbush.com/projects/masked-input-plugin/

They even go over how to mask phone number inputs in their tutorial.

It's near to impossible to handle all sorts of international phone numbers using simple regex.

You'd be better off using a service like numverify.com, they're offering a free JSON API for international phone number validation, plus you'll get some useful details on country, location, carrier and line type with every request.

since there are so many options to write a phone number, one can just test that are enough digits in it, no matter how they are separated. i found 9 to 14 digits work for me:

^\D*(\d\D*){9,14}$

true:

• 123456789
• 1234567890123
• +123 (456) 78.90-98.76

false:

• 123
• (1234) 1234
• 9007199254740991
• 123 wont do what you tell me
• +123 (456) 78.90-98.76 #543 ext 210>2>5>3
• (123) 456-7890 in the morning (987) 54-3210 after 18:00 and ask for Shirley

if you do want to support those last two examples - just remove the upper limit:

(\d\D*){9,}

(the ^$ are not needed if there's no upper limit)

You'll have a hard time dealing with international numbers with a single/simple regex, see this post on the difficulties of international (and even north american) phone numbers.

You'll want to parse the first few digits to determine what the country code is, then act differently based on the country.

Beyond that - the list you gave does not include another common US format - leaving off the initial 1. Most cell phones in the US don't require it, and it'll start to baffle the younger generation unless they've dialed internationally.

You've correctly identified that it's a tricky problem...

-Adam

Here's one that works well in JavaScript. It's in a string because that's what the Dojo widget was expecting.

It matches a 10 digit North America NANP number with optional extension. Spaces, dashes and periods are accepted delimiters.

"^(\\(?\\d\\d\\d\\)?)( |-|\\.)?\\d\\d\\d( |-|\\.)?\\d{4,4}(( |-|\\.)?[ext\\.]+ ?\\d+)?$"

I wrote simpliest (although i didn't need dot in it).

^([0-9\(\)\/\+ \-]*)$

As mentioned below, it checks only for characters, not its structure/order

My inclination is to agree that stripping non-digits and just accepting what's there is best. Maybe to ensure at least a couple digits are present, although that does prohibit something like an alphabetic phone number "ASK-JAKE" for example.

A couple simple perl expressions might be:

@f = /(\d+)/g;
tr/0-9//dc;

Use the first one to keep the digit groups together, which may give formatting clues. Use the second one to trivially toss all non-digits.

Is it a worry that there may need to be a pause and then more keys entered? Or something like 555-1212 (wait for the beep) 123?

/^(?:(?:\(?(?:00|\+)([1-4]\d\d|[1-9]\d?)\)?)?[\-\.\ \\\/]?)?((?:\(?\d{1,}\)?[\-\.\ \\\/]?){0,})(?:[\-\.\ \\\/]?(?:#|ext\.?|extension|x)[\-\.\ \\\/]?(\d+))?$/i

This matches:

 - (+351) 282 43 50 50
 - 90191919908
 - 555-8909
 - 001 6867684
 - 001 6867684x1
 - 1 (234) 567-8901
 - 1-234-567-8901 x1234
 - 1-234-567-8901 ext1234
 - 1-234 567.89/01 ext.1234
 - 1(234)5678901x1234
 - (123)8575973
 - (0055)(123)8575973

On $n, it saves:

1. Country indicator
2. Phone number
3. Extension

You can test it on https://www.regexpal.com/?fam=99127

Although it's not regex, you can use the function validate_phone() from the Python library DataPrep to validate US phone numbers. Install it with pip install dataprep.

>>> from dataprep.clean import validate_phone
>>> df = pd.DataFrame({'phone': ['1-234-567-8901', '1-234-567-8901 x1234', 
         '1-234-567-8901 ext1234', '1 (234) 567-8901', '1.234.567.8901',
         '1/234/567/8901', 12345678901, '12345678', '123-456-78987']})
>>> validate_phone(df['phone'])
0     True
1     True
2     True
3     True
4     True
5     True
6     True
7    False
8    False
Name: phone, dtype: bool

My attempt at an unrestrictive regex:

/^[+#*\(\)\[\]]*([0-9][ ext+-pw#*\(\)\[\]]*){6,45}$/

Accepts:

+(01) 123 (456) 789 ext555
123456
*44 123-456-789 [321]
123456
123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345
*****++[](][((( 123456tteexxttppww

Rejects:

mob 07777 777777
1234 567 890 after 5pm
john smith
(empty)
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456
911

It is up to you to sanitize it for display. After validating it could be a number though.

Java generates REGEX for valid phone numbers

Another alternative is to let Java generate a REGEX that macthes all variations of phone numbers read from a list. This means that the list called validPhoneNumbersFormat, seen below in code context, is deciding which phone number format is valid.

Note: This type of algorithm would work for any language handling regular expressions.

Code snippet that generates the REGEX:

Set<String> regexSet = uniqueValidPhoneNumbersFormats.stream()
        .map(s -> s.replaceAll("\\+", "\\\\+"))
        .map(s -> s.replaceAll("\\d", "\\\\d"))
        .map(s -> s.replaceAll("\\.", "\\\\."))
        .map(s -> s.replaceAll("([\\(\\)])", "\\\\$1"))
        .collect(Collectors.toSet());

String regex = String.join("|", regexSet);

Code snippet in context:

public class TestBench {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        List<String> validPhoneNumbersFormat = Arrays.asList(
                "1-234-567-8901",
                "1-234-567-8901 x1234",
                "1-234-567-8901 ext1234",
                "1 (234) 567-8901",
                "1.234.567.8901",
                "1/234/567/8901",
                "12345678901",
                "+12345678901",
                "(234) 567-8901 ext. 123",
                "+1 234-567-8901 ext. 123",
                "1 (234) 567-8901 ext. 123",
                "00 1 234-567-8901 ext. 123",
                "+210-998-234-01234",
                "210-998-234-01234",
                "+21099823401234",
                "+210-(998)-(234)-(01234)",
                "(+351) 282 43 50 50",
                "90191919908",
                "555-8909",
                "001 6867684",
                "001 6867684x1",
                "1 (234) 567-8901",
                "1-234-567-8901 x1234",
                "1-234-567-8901 ext1234",
                "1-234 567.89/01 ext.1234",
                "1(234)5678901x1234",
                "(123)8575973",
                "(0055)(123)8575973"
        );

        Set<String> uniqueValidPhoneNumbersFormats = new LinkedHashSet<>(validPhoneNumbersFormat);

        List<String> invalidPhoneNumbers = Arrays.asList(
                "+210-99A-234-01234",       // FAIL
                "+210-999-234-0\"\"234",    // FAIL
                "+210-999-234-02;4",        // FAIL
                "-210+998-234-01234",       // FAIL
                "+210-998)-(234-(01234"     // FAIL
        );
        List<String> invalidAndValidPhoneNumbers = new ArrayList<>();
        invalidAndValidPhoneNumbers.addAll(invalidPhoneNumbers);
        invalidAndValidPhoneNumbers.addAll(uniqueValidPhoneNumbersFormats);

        Set<String> regexSet = uniqueValidPhoneNumbersFormats.stream()
                .map(s -> s.replaceAll("\\+", "\\\\+"))
                .map(s -> s.replaceAll("\\d", "\\\\d"))
                .map(s -> s.replaceAll("\\.", "\\\\."))
                .map(s -> s.replaceAll("([\\(\\)])", "\\\\$1"))
                .collect(Collectors.toSet());

        String regex = String.join("|", regexSet);

        List<String> result = new ArrayList<>();
        Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex);
        for (String phoneNumber : invalidAndValidPhoneNumbers) {
            Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(phoneNumber);
            if(matcher.matches()) {
                result.add(matcher.group());
            }
        }

        // Output:
        if(uniqueValidPhoneNumbersFormats.size() == result.size()) {
            System.out.println("All valid numbers was matched!\n");
        }    
        result.forEach(System.out::println); 
    }

}

Output:

All valid numbers was matched!

1-234-567-8901
1-234-567-8901 x1234
1-234-567-8901 ext1234
...
...
...

This is a simple Regular Expression pattern for Philippine Mobile Phone Numbers:

((\+[0-9]{2})|0)[.\- ]?9[0-9]{2}[.\- ]?[0-9]{3}[.\- ]?[0-9]{4}

or

((\+63)|0)[.\- ]?9[0-9]{2}[.\- ]?[0-9]{3}[.\- ]?[0-9]{4}

will match these:

+63.917.123.4567  
+63-917-123-4567  
+63 917 123 4567  
+639171234567  
09171234567  

The first one will match ANY two digit country code, while the second one will match the Philippine country code exclusively.

Test it here: http://refiddle.com/1ox

Although the answer to strip all whitespace is neat, it doesn't really solve the problem that's posed, which is to find a regex. Take, for instance, my test script that downloads a web page and extracts all phone numbers using the regex. Since you'd need a regex anyway, you might as well have the regex do all the work. I came up with this:

1?\W*([2-9][0-8][0-9])\W*([2-9][0-9]{2})\W*([0-9]{4})(\se?x?t?(\d*))?

Here's a perl script to test it. When you match, $1 contains the area code, $2 and $3 contain the phone number, and $5 contains the extension. My test script downloads a file from the internet and prints all the phone numbers in it.

#!/usr/bin/perl

my $us_phone_regex =
        '1?\W*([2-9][0-8][0-9])\W*([2-9][0-9]{2})\W*([0-9]{4})(\se?x?t?(\d*))?';


my @tests =
(
"1-234-567-8901",
"1-234-567-8901 x1234",
"1-234-567-8901 ext1234",
"1 (234) 567-8901",
"1.234.567.8901",
"1/234/567/8901",
"12345678901",
"not a phone number"
);

foreach my $num (@tests)
{
        if( $num =~ m/$us_phone_regex/ )
        {
                print "match [$1-$2-$3]\n" if not defined $4;
                print "match [$1-$2-$3 $5]\n" if defined $4;
        }
        else
        {
                print "no match [$num]\n";
        }
}

#
# Extract all phone numbers from an arbitrary file.
#
my $external_filename =
        'http://web.textfiles.com/ezines/PHREAKSANDGEEKS/PnG-spring05.txt';
my @external_file = `curl $external_filename`;
foreach my $line (@external_file)
{
        if( $line =~ m/$us_phone_regex/ )
        {
                print "match $1 $2 $3\n";
        }
}

Edit:

You can change \W* to \s*\W?\s* in the regex to tighten it up a bit. I wasn't thinking of the regex in terms of, say, validating user input on a form when I wrote it, but this change makes it possible to use the regex for that purpose.

'1?\s*\W?\s*([2-9][0-8][0-9])\s*\W?\s*([2-9][0-9]{2})\s*\W?\s*([0-9]{4})(\se?x?t?(\d*))?';

Note It takes as an input a US mobile number in any format and optionally accepts a second parameter - set true if you want the output mobile number formatted to look pretty. If the number provided is not a mobile number, it simple returns false. If a mobile number IS detected, it returns the entire sanitized number instead of true.

    function isValidMobile(num,format) {
        if (!format) format=false
        var m1 = /^(\W|^)[(]{0,1}\d{3}[)]{0,1}[.]{0,1}[\s-]{0,1}\d{3}[\s-]{0,1}[\s.]{0,1}\d{4}(\W|$)/
        if(!m1.test(num)) {
           return false
        }
        num = num.replace(/ /g,'').replace(/\./g,'').replace(/-/g,'').replace(/\(/g,'').replace(/\)/g,'').replace(/\[/g,'').replace(/\]/g,'').replace(/\+/g,'').replace(/\~/g,'').replace(/\{/g,'').replace(/\*/g,'').replace(/\}/g,'')
        if ((num.length < 10) || (num.length > 11) || (num.substring(0,1)=='0') || (num.substring(1,1)=='0') || ((num.length==10)&&(num.substring(0,1)=='1'))||((num.length==11)&&(num.substring(0,1)!='1'))) return false;
        num = (num.length == 11) ? num : ('1' + num);   
        if ((num.length == 11) && (num.substring(0,1) == "1")) {
            if (format===true) {
               return '(' + num.substr(1,3) + ') ' + num.substr(4,3) + '-' + num.substr(7,4)
            } else {
               return num
            }
        } else {
            return false;
        }
    }