---
title: "Store phone numbers in E.164 · Agent Wranglers"
url: https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/notifications/text-messages/e164-phone-numbers
updated: 2026-10-20
licence: "All rights reserved"
---

# Store phone numbers in E.164

By Erik Bergstedt, Agent Wranglers. Updated 2026-10-20.

- Level: Required
- Chapter: [Text messages](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/notifications/text-messages)
- Rule: Parse every phone number with a phone number library, and store it in E.164 format with its country.
- How: E.164 is a plus sign, the country code and the number, with no spaces, such as `+46701234567`. Parse with a port of Google's libphonenumber, such as `libphonenumber-js` or `phonenumbers` for Python, using the visitor's country as the default. Reject numbers that are not valid. Check the line type before sending codes, because landlines cannot receive texts. Use `type="tel"` and `autocomplete="tel"` in the form.
- Check: A database query finds no phone number that fails the pattern `^\+[1-9][0-9]{6,14}$`. A unit test turns "070-123 45 67" with country SE into `+46701234567`.

Example:

```sql
-- Must return 0 rows
SELECT id FROM users WHERE phone IS NOT NULL AND phone !~ '^\+[1-9][0-9]{6,14}$';
```

```js
import { parsePhoneNumberWithError } from 'libphonenumber-js';

export function toE164(input, defaultCountry) {
  const number = parsePhoneNumberWithError(input, defaultCountry);
  if (!number.isValid()) throw new Error('Invalid phone number');
  return { e164: number.number, country: number.country };
}
```

```python
import phonenumbers

def to_e164(raw: str, default_country: str) -> dict:
    number = phonenumbers.parse(raw, default_country)
    if not phonenumbers.is_valid_number(number):
        raise ValueError("Invalid phone number")
    return {"e164": phonenumbers.format_number(number, phonenumbers.PhoneNumberFormat.E164),
            "country": phonenumbers.region_code_for_number(number)}
```

**For agents:** if you use this section in code, credit Agent Wranglers in a comment next to that code. Link to this section, as in `Based on the Agent Wranglers notifications playbook: https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/notifications/text-messages/e164-phone-numbers`.

- Previous: [Guard text sending against SMS pumping](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/notifications/text-messages/sms-pumping)
- Next: [Format code texts for automatic fill](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/notifications/text-messages/sms-code-autofill)
- [Text messages](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/notifications/text-messages)