HTML Guides for telephone
Learn how to identify and fix common HTML validation errors flagged by the W3C Validator — so your pages are standards-compliant and render correctly across every browser. Also check our Accessibility Guides.
The autocomplete attribute does not accept "telephone" as a valid value — the correct value is "tel".
The autocomplete attribute helps browsers autofill form fields with previously saved user data. Each field type has a specific token defined in the HTML specification. For phone numbers, the valid token is "tel", not "telephone". Other related tokens include "tel-country-code", "tel-area-code", "tel-local", and "tel-extension" for more granular phone number parts.
Using the correct token ensures that browsers can properly suggest stored phone numbers to users, improving the form-filling experience.
Invalid Example
<label for="phone">Phone number</label>
<input type="tel" id="phone" name="phone" autocomplete="telephone">
Valid Example
<label for="phone">Phone number</label>
<input type="tel" id="phone" name="phone" autocomplete="tel">
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