Mississippi Phone Directory Search by Region

How to Find Phone Numbers in Mississippi

Start with the office that owns the number, not with a search engine. Mississippi keeps its published numbers in four or five separate systems, and each one holds a different slice. The Department of Information Technology Services runs the State Government Telephone Directory, which handles employee and agency searches and also offers a downloadable PDF for offline use. ITS sits at 3771 Eastwood Drive in Jackson and answers at 601-432-8000, with a technical support service center at 601-432-8080.

The ITS telephone directory page is the closest thing Mississippi has to a single state phone book.

Employee search, agency search, and the PDF all live on that one page, so it is worth bookmarking before you need it.

There is no statewide 311 line in Mississippi. That surprises people who moved here from a big metro. When an online directory comes up empty, the fallback chain is the agency switchboard first, then 211 for anything run by a nonprofit or a community program, then the county courthouse for local records and clerks. A written public-records request to the agency is the last stop, and it goes to that agency's records officer rather than to any central state desk.

1. State employee or state office: use the ITS directory, then the agency card on MS.gov.
2. School staff or a superintendent: use the Mississippi Department of Education district directory.
3. Court clerk or judge: use the judiciary directory pages at courts.ms.gov.
4. Food help, rent help, shelter, or transportation: dial 211.
5. Unknown caller: check the area code against the official code map before calling back.

Area Codes Serving Mississippi

Five codes cover Mississippi. For fifty years there was only one. Area code 601 was handed to the state in the original 1947 numbering plan and carried every phone in Mississippi until the late 1990s. Then demand from fax lines, pagers, second household lines, and mobile phones pushed the state into splits. The Gulf Coast broke off as 228 in 1997. The northern half broke off as 662 in 1999. What was left, the central and southern middle of the state, picked up an overlay called 769 in 2005.

The newest code is 471. The Mississippi Public Service Commission approved it in June 2024 as an all-services overlay on top of 662, and it went into service on January 30, 2026. An overlay does not move anybody. Existing 662 numbers stay exactly as they are, and 471 gets handed out for new lines once the remaining 662 prefixes run out. The practical effect for callers in north Mississippi is ten digits on every local call.

The full breakdown of each code, including the rate centers underneath them, sits on the Mississippi phone area codes page.

Public Safety Phone Numbers in Mississippi

Emergencies go to 911. That covers fire, a crime in progress, a crash, a serious injury, and any threat to life. Everything else has its own line. Non-emergency police and sheriff numbers are set locally in Mississippi, so you need the city police department, the county sheriff dispatch, or the nearest Highway Patrol troop rather than one statewide number. Highway Patrol posts its troops by region, with Troop C at 601-420-6342 in Pearl, Troop G at 662-498-1054 in Starkville, and Troop H at 601-512-0508 in Meridian.

The Department of Mental Health has run 988 in Mississippi since July 16, 2022. It is free, confidential, and open every day of the year. DMH also keeps mobile crisis teams by region, which matters when someone needs a person to come out rather than a phone conversation. Region 9 answers at 601-955-6381, Region 10 at 800-803-0245, Region 4 at 888-287-4443, and the Region 12 Coast team at 800-681-0798. DMH itself answers at 601-359-1288, with TDD at 601-359-6230 and a toll-free helpline at 877-210-8513.

The DMH crisis services page lists every mobile crisis region with its own number.

If you are not sure which region covers your county, 988 will route the call for you.

Reports of abuse have their own lines. Suspected child abuse, neglect, or trafficking of a minor goes to 1-800-222-8000 or through the online reporting portal. Abuse of an adult 18 or older who is not in state custody goes to Adult Protective Services at 844-437-6282. Anonymous crime tips are regional: Central Mississippi Crime Stoppers takes them at 601-355-TIPS, the Coast chapter at 877-787-5898, Jones County at 601-428-STOP, and northeast Mississippi at 800-773-8477.

Note: Crime Stoppers lines are tip lines only, so anything happening right now still belongs on 911.

Mississippi State Government Phone Directory

Most state offices cluster in Jackson, which is why so many official Mississippi numbers begin with 601 or 769. The MS.gov Agency Directory is the public-facing list. You type an agency name, press Search, and get back a card with the agency name, street address, main phone, website, and sometimes an email or a social link. There is also an A to Z version for browsing when you are not sure of the exact agency name, plus a form for reporting a listing that has gone stale.

The MS.gov Agency Directory is the fastest way to confirm a state phone number before you call it back.

Employee-level direct numbers are not on those agency cards, so the ITS directory is still the place to look for a named person.

A handful of agencies take the bulk of resident calls. The Governor's Office answers at 601-359-3150. The Attorney General is at 601-359-3680 and handles consumer complaints and scam alerts. The Department of Revenue is 601-923-7700, the Department of Transportation 601-359-7074, the Department of Environmental Quality 601-961-5171, and the Department of Employment Security 601-321-6000. Mississippi Public Broadcasting answers at 601-432-6565.

Mississippi School and University Directories

Education gives Mississippi its deepest set of published phone numbers, and it is split across three levels. The Mississippi Department of Education answers general questions at 601-359-3513 and then breaks out by office. Educator Licensure is 601-359-3483, Special Education 601-359-3498, Child Nutrition 601-576-5000, Student Assessment 601-359-3052, and the State Superintendent's office 601-359-1750. The state specialty schools are listed there too: the School of the Arts at 601-823-1300, the School for the Blind at 601-984-8203, the School for the Deaf at 601-984-8000, and the School for Mathematics and Science at 662-329-7360.

The MDE office directory lists each division with its own number and a staff link where one exists.

Office-level numbers get you past the main switchboard, which saves a transfer or two.

District numbers live somewhere else. The MDE District Directory is the statewide K-12 phone book, organized A to Z, and every entry carries the same set of fields.

Baldwyn School District in Prentiss County, for example, shows 107 W. Main Street, Baldwyn, MS 38824, with a phone of 662-365-1000 and a fax of 662-365-1003. Bay St. Louis-Waveland in Hancock County shows 228-467-6621. What the district directory holds for each district is worth knowing before you search it.

Classroom and campus extensions are not in that statewide list, so a teacher's number means going to the district site itself. On the college side, the University of Mississippi publishes an employee directory and answers at 662-915-7211. Mississippi State runs a directory page and lists campus information at 662-325-2323. The Mississippi Library Commission is 1-800-647-7542, and Talking Book Services is 601-432-4151.

Mississippi Utility and Outage Phone Numbers

Utility calls split two ways, and mixing them up costs time. Outage and emergency lines are staffed around the clock. Billing and account lines keep business hours. Electric service in Mississippi is divided among Entergy in the center of the state, Mississippi Power on the Coast and in the southeast, cooperatives such as Coast Electric, and a handful of municipal systems. Entergy also takes outage reports by text, by app, and online, so a busy phone line is not the only option after a storm.

Natural gas service changed hands during 2025 and 2026, so check the provider printed on your bill before dialing a customer service number. A gas leak is different. Leave the building first, then call from somewhere safe.

Water, sewer, and trash are city or county services in Mississippi. There is no statewide billing line for any of them, so those calls go to the municipal utility office or the county public works department. Digging is the one utility task with a single statewide answer, and the Mississippi 811 site handles it.

Locate requests run 24 hours a day, and homeowners and contractors follow different paths on the site.

Health and Social Services Numbers in Mississippi

Two agencies carry most of this traffic. The Mississippi State Department of Health handles vital records, and its office answers at 601-206-8200 for birth and death record questions and corrections. The customer service window is at 222 Marketridge Drive in Ridgeland and runs 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. State-held records start in 1912. Fees change, so the same number is the right one for checking a current fee before you mail anything.

The Department of Human Services keeps its main lines short. SNAP and TANF questions go to 800-948-3050. Child support is 877-882-4916. Community services is 800-421-0762. The agency itself sits at 200 South Lamar Street in Jackson and answers at 601-359-4500.

The MDHS contact page keeps those quick contacts together in one short list.

Those three numbers cover the questions the agency gets most, which is why they sit above everything else on the page.

State hospitals and regional centers publish their own numbers through the agency directory. East Mississippi State Hospital in Meridian answers at 601-581-7600, Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield at 601-351-8018, North Mississippi State Hospital in Tupelo at 662-690-4200, and Boswell Regional Center in Magee at 601-867-5000. For substance use or mental health referrals anywhere in the state, the national SAMHSA helpline is 1-800-662-4357.

County and Court Numbers Across Mississippi

Counties run more of daily life here than most people expect. Chancery clerks, circuit clerks, sheriffs, tax assessors and collectors, boards of supervisors, and emergency management all sit at the county level, and each of the 82 counties keeps its own website and its own phone list. There is no single statewide county directory, so the county name has to come first.

Courts are the exception, because the judiciary publishes directories centrally. The Mississippi Judiciary directory page links to contact PDFs for appellate courts and for chancery, circuit, county, justice, municipal, and youth courts.

The appellate directory lists the Clerk's Office at 601-359-3694 with a fax of 601-359-2407, and the Supreme Court itself answers at 601-359-3697.

Legal help is regional rather than statewide. North Mississippi Rural Legal Services answers in Clarksdale at 662-627-4184, Greenville at 662-335-8203, Oxford at 662-234-2918, and West Point at 662-494-6122. The Mississippi Center for Legal Services covers a 43-county area in the center and south of the state at 1-800-498-1804. The Mississippi Bar is at 601-948-4471, though it says plainly that it does not run a lawyer referral service, which is worth knowing before you call expecting one.

Looking Up an Unknown Mississippi Number

An unknown caller with a 601 or 662 prefix is not proof of anything. Spoofing makes any area code look local, and number portability means the prefix may no longer belong to the carrier that was first assigned it. The safer move is to check the number against the official directory of whoever the caller claimed to be, then decide whether to call back. Government impostor calls are common enough in Mississippi that the Attorney General posts warnings about them.

The longer walkthrough, including what each third-party tool actually returns, sits on the Mississippi phone numbers page.

Robocalls and Scam Calls in Mississippi

Mississippi routes phone complaints through four doors. The Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division handles fraud and scam mediation, and the state uses the national registry for Do Not Call signups, so registration is at donotcall.gov or 1-888-382-1222, with TTY at 1-866-290-4236. The Public Service Commission takes telemarketer complaints and runs the state No Call program, which started back in July 2003. The FTC takes unwanted sales call reports once a number has been on the registry for 31 days. The FCC handles spoofing, blocked calls, and mislabeled caller ID at 1-888-225-5322.

Enforcement has picked up. The Attorney General launched Operation Robocall Roundup on August 7, 2025 with warning letters to 37 telecom companies, announced a second phase on December 9, 2025, and posted another robocall and text enforcement item in July 2026.

The scams that show up here follow the weather and the calendar. Storm season brings fake contractors and utility shutoff threats, especially along the Coast. Winter weather brought its own round of contractor warnings in February 2026. Government impostor calls claiming to be a court, a tax office, or a benefits agency run all year. Card skimmer fraud tends to be followed by bank security calls that are not from your bank.

• Robocall and text blasts routed through small or non-compliant carriers
• Impostors claiming to be courts, law enforcement, MDHS, or a utility
• Post-storm contractor and repair scams
• Missed delivery texts with a link
• Warranty and auto service calls
• AI voice cloning used in family emergency and grandparent scams

Community Phone Numbers in Mississippi

211 Mississippi is the referral line that covers what no agency directory does. United Way of the Capital Area describes it as connecting callers to health and human service resources matched to their need and their location. United Way of South Mississippi adds that it is free, confidential, open to any age, and staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That covers food pantries, rent and utility help, shelter, transportation, child care, elder support, and disaster relief.

Regional differences show up in the phone book more than anywhere else. On the Coast a 228 number usually means a port, a casino, a hospital, a coastal school district, or a county emergency management office. In the middle of the state a 601 or 769 number is more likely to be a state agency, a court, or a university. Up north, 662 and now 471 point to Ole Miss and Oxford, Mississippi State and Starkville, Tupelo healthcare, DeSoto County suburbs of Memphis, and Delta offices.

Mississippi Phone Number Basics

Every Mississippi number follows the same shape: country code 1, then a three-digit area code, then a three-digit exchange code, then a four-digit line number. Written out, that is 601-359-3513 or (601) 359-3513 or +1 601 359 3513. Ten digits is the safe habit statewide, since two of the three regions are overlaid and mobile phones expect ten digits anyway. The service codes, star codes, and toll-free prefixes are laid out on the Mississippi phone codes page.

NPA

Numbering Plan Area, which is the three-digit area code.

NXX

The central office or exchange code, meaning the three digits right after the area code.

Overlay

A second area code laid over the same ground as the first. Nobody changes numbers, and local calls take ten digits.

Split

A geographic division where part of the old area keeps the old code and part gets a new one.

Rate Center

The billing area a prefix is assigned to, which is how carriers decide what counts as a local call.

Phone Service History in Mississippi

Telephone service reached Mississippi long before area codes existed. The first exchange in the state was installed in Vicksburg on January 10, 1881, at 102 1/2 North Washington Street, by the Louisiana Telephone Company. Through the twentieth century the state sat inside the Bell System. Southern Bell served Mississippi until 1968, when the state moved to South Central Bell. BellSouth followed after divestiture, and AT&T acquired BellSouth Telecommunications in 2006.

That history still shows up in the numbers. Older school, hospital, government, and business lines were assigned under Bell exchanges, and the central office buildings behind them still shape which prefix belongs to which town. Portability muddied the picture after the fact, so a 601 number today might ride on a mobile network or a cloud voice platform with no copper anywhere in the path.

Recent Phone News in Mississippi

The 471 overlay is the big one. It entered service on January 30, 2026, after a preparation and customer education period that started in April 2025. The Public Service Commission announced it on January 28, 2026, and local coverage explained that customers in the 662 region could start receiving 471 numbers when ordering new service or extra lines. Anyone already holding a 662 number kept it.

One smaller item is worth knowing. The Department of Human Services says its Promise messages may arrive as texts from 769-210-8724 or as email from a no-reply address, after a pilot in Harrison and Pearl River counties. Questions about those messages go to 1-800-948-3050. Official state text numbers are rare enough that recognizing this one helps separate a real notice from a scam.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to dial ten digits everywhere in Mississippi?

In most of the state, yes. The 601 and 769 region has required ten digits since the 769 overlay arrived in 2005. The 662 and 471 region uses ten digits for local calls and 1 plus ten digits for toll calls, which the numbering plan letter for the overlay spells out. Area code 228 on the Gulf Coast is not overlaid, so seven-digit local dialing may still work there depending on the carrier. Ten digits works everywhere, so it is the simpler habit.

Does Mississippi have a statewide 311 line?

No. Some cities offer their own non-emergency service line, but there is nothing statewide. For community services and referrals, 211 is the number that covers the whole state. For a specific state office, call that agency directly using the number on its MS.gov card. For anything local, the city hall switchboard or the county courthouse main line is the fallback.

How do I find a state employee's direct number?

Use the State Government Telephone Directory that ITS publishes. It has employee search and agency search, plus a PDF version you can download and keep. Agency cards on MS.gov show the main office number but not individual staff lines. If the person still does not come up, the agency's own staff page or its main switchboard is the next step.

What is the 471 area code?

It is an overlay for north Mississippi. The Public Service Commission approved it in June 2024 and it went live on January 30, 2026. It covers the same ground as 662, which means Southaven, Tupelo, Oxford, Starkville, Columbus, Corinth, and the rest of the north. New lines can be issued a 471 number once the available 662 prefixes are used up. Nobody with a 662 number had to change it.

Where do I report a robocall?

Start with donotcall.gov if it was a sales call and your number has been registered for at least 31 days. Use the FCC Consumer Complaint Center for spoofing, blocked calls, or a wrong spam label. The Mississippi Public Service Commission takes telemarketer complaints through its No Call program, and the Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division handles fraud. Write down the calling number, the date, the time, and what was said before you file.

Can I tell where a Mississippi caller is by the area code?

Not reliably. An area code shows where a number was first assigned, not where the phone is now. People keep their numbers when they move, carriers port numbers between networks, and scammers spoof local codes on purpose. The area code is a clue worth checking, but the real test is whether the number matches the official directory listing for whoever the caller claims to be.