FIELD GUIDE

Should the phone field be required?

A required phone number is one of the fields people stop at most. Some will not hand it over, some type a fake one, and some get told a real number is wrong. Here is when you need it, and how to ask without losing people.

2 sources, each one read in November 2026 and linked at the bottom.

THE SHORT ANSWER

The quick version.

Ask for a phone number only if you use it, for example so a courier can call. If you need it, say why in one line next to the field. If you do not, make it optional or remove it. And never reject a number because of its format, because phone formats vary too much around the world to check them one way.

THE NUMBERS

What Baymard and MDN found.

  • 14 in 100

    online shoppers in a Baymard survey of 1,026 people said they would never give an online store their phone number. Baymard Institute

  • 39 in 100

    large ecommerce sites in Baymard's benchmark require a phone number without saying why. Baymard Institute

  • 27 in 100

    shoppers are reluctant to give their date of birth, and 14 in 100 their gender. Same problem, same fix. Baymard Institute

  • No format

    is checked by browsers for phone fields. MDN says formats vary so much around the world that one way to validate them is not practical. MDN

WHAT TO CHANGE

Why it happens, and the fix for each.

  1. 01People do not see why you need it

    In Baymard's testing, shoppers expected order updates by email, so a required phone number looked suspicious. Many assumed it would be used for marketing. One said they could not see what the store needed it for. Baymard Institute

    TRY THISIf you keep the field, add one short line under it saying what it is for, such as 'Only used if the courier cannot find you.' Baymard found a reason given next to the field settles most people's worry.

  2. 02Some people type a fake number instead

    Baymard watched people enter false numbers to get past a required field. That defeats the reason for asking, and a made-up number can cause card checks to fail in ways that are hard to sort out. Baymard Institute

    TRY THISIf a number is optional, say so in the label. A blank field is more useful to you than 000 0000.

  3. 03The field rejects real numbers

    Browsers do not check phone formats, because they vary too much. A site that adds its own strict check, such as exactly ten digits with no spaces, will turn away real customers with a country code, a space or a dash. MDN

    TRY THISAccept any format: digits, spaces, dashes, brackets and a leading plus. Strip what you do not want after the form is sent, not while the person is typing.

  4. 04On phones, the wrong keyboard makes it slower

    A field marked as a phone number tells mobile browsers to show a number pad. A plain text field shows the full keyboard, so people have to switch to numbers to type it. MDN

    TRY THISMark the field with type="tel". It costs nothing and changes the keyboard on every phone.

  5. 05You may not need it at all

    Baymard lists stores that removed the field and handle orders and support by email. If nobody at your company has called a customer in the last month, you probably do not use it. Baymard Institute

    TRY THISAsk whoever ships your orders when they last used a customer's phone number. If the answer is never, remove the field.

ON YOUR OWN SITE

Watch which field people stop at.

Five visitors, five different stops. Once you can see the last field each person touched, you know whether the phone field is yours.

VISITOR

1 of 5

RECORDEDlive
  • Waiting for the first event.

Five visitors, three different fields. That is the pattern you would never see in a conversion rate.

Moxel's Vibey depth notes the last field each person touched before leaving a form, so you can see whether it is the phone field. At Feral it also times each field and counts which ones showed an error. It never records what anyone types, only whether a field held something. It is in early access.

THE LIMITS

What this cannot tell you.

Baymard's numbers come from US shoppers and large ecommerce sites, and its testing is on checkouts, not signup or lead forms. A lead form for a service that will call people back is a different case, because there the number is the point. On a small site, a handful of people stopping at the phone field is a hint, not proof.

QUESTIONS

Asked a lot.

Should the phone number field be required?
Only if you use it, for example for delivery. If you require it, say why in one line next to the field, which Baymard found settles most people's privacy worry. If you do not need it, make it optional or remove it.
Does a phone number field reduce conversions?
It can. In a Baymard survey of 1,026 shoppers, 14 in 100 said they would never give a store their number. Some of the rest type a fake one. Explaining why you ask, or making the field optional, keeps most of them.
How should I validate a phone number field?
Loosely. MDN notes phone formats vary too much to validate one way. Accept digits, spaces, dashes, brackets and a leading plus, use type="tel" so phones show a number pad, and clean the number up after the form is sent.

SOURCES

Where the numbers came from.

  1. Explain why the phone field is requiredBaymard Institute, Edward Scott, March 2020, updated July 2025.
  2. <input type="tel">MDN.

Read in November 2026. Studies get updated, so follow the link for today's figures.

KEEP READING

More from the field guide.

How Moxel records all of this is in the docs. What it never records is on the privacy page.

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