Search the Louisiana Phone Directory

How to Find Phone Numbers in Louisiana

Start at the state gateway. Louisiana.gov opens onto executive, legislative, and judicial offices, online services, vital records, and the agency directory. That directory is the single widest list of public numbers in Louisiana. Each agency gets a card with a short description of what it does, a street address, a website, and a main phone line. It will not give you an individual employee, and it does not reach down into city or parish government. What it does well is settle which agency you actually need before you start dialing.

The statewide gateway sits at louisiana.gov.

From that front page the agency directory, vital records, and business services all branch off, which saves a search engine detour.

Behind the website there is still a phone book. The Division of Administration, through its Office of Technology Services, publishes the Louisiana State Government Telephone Directory. It is arranged city by city rather than only by agency, with listing sections for Alexandria, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lake Charles, Monroe, New Orleans, and Shreveport. Reference pages cover elected officials, the congressional delegation, the state senate and house, and the state colleges and universities. Local dialing instructions run ahead of each of the seven metro sections. For anyone hunting a state office in a specific town, that layout beats a keyword search.

The directory page and the current PDF are posted by the Office of Technology Services.

The same file carries relay service details, N11 code definitions, and a warning that public directory assistance calls can be billed.

When neither one turns up the number, a person can still help. State government directory assistance answers at 225-342-6600 in Baton Rouge and at 800-256-7777 from anywhere in Louisiana. That line exists for exactly this case, a state number that is unlisted or that rings nowhere.

1. Check the Louisiana.gov agency directory first to confirm which office handles the matter.
2. For a state office in a particular city, open the state telephone directory and jump to that city's listings.
3. For a town, village, or small city main line, use the Louisiana Municipal Association directory.
4. For land records, marriage licenses, or court filings, go to the clerk of court for that parish.
5. For food, housing, utility help, or disaster resources anywhere in Louisiana, dial 211.
6. If the number is still missing, call state directory assistance or file a public records request with the office that holds it.

Note: work phone rosters are generally public, but personal cell and home numbers held by an agency are not, so ask for the office line.

Area Codes Serving Louisiana

Six codes carry Louisiana calls today, spread over five geographic regions. Code 504 came first, handed out in 1947 when it covered the whole state. It now holds only the New Orleans core. North and central Louisiana went to 318 in 1957. Baton Rouge and the capital parishes broke away as 225 in 1998. Southwest Louisiana and Acadiana became 337 in 1999. Southeast Louisiana outside New Orleans became 985 in 2001. The newest is 457, which sits on top of 318 rather than carving anything out of it.

Dialing is not uniform, and that trips people up. Callers in 337 and 504 have needed all ten digits for local calls since October 2021, which had nothing to do with an overlay. Both regions had working 988 prefixes, and seven-digit dialing could not coexist with the new 988 crisis line. The 318 and 457 region went to ten digits for a different reason, the overlay itself. In 225 and 985 there is no overlay and no statewide rule on file, so what your local calls need depends on your carrier and your local calling area. Code by code coverage is broken out on the Louisiana phone area codes page.

NANPA publishes the dialing plans and area code summaries behind all of this at nanpa.com.

Those reports are the source of record when a carrier and a website disagree about which Louisiana code covers what.

Public Safety Phone Numbers in Louisiana

Dial 911 when something is happening right now. A fire, a wreck, chest pain, a crime in progress. Everything short of that has a calmer line, and using it keeps 911 free. Louisiana runs three statewide short codes alongside it. 988 handles mental health and suicide crisis. 211 handles food, housing, utility help, and disaster resources. 711 connects relay calls for deaf, hard of hearing, and speech disabled callers.

Louisiana 988 routes callers to a local crisis center when one is available rather than sending every call to a national queue. Support is free, confidential, and open at any hour.

The state program explains its coverage at louisiana988.org.

Text and chat work the same way as the call, which matters for anyone who cannot safely speak out loud.

Louisiana 211 is the other number worth memorizing. Eight nonprofit organizations run it between them, and it reaches every parish. Specialists answer live, day or night, and the service is confidential. If calling is awkward, text your ZIP code to 898-211 and the resources come back matched to your area. Interpretation covers up to 161 languages.

The statewide network publishes its coverage and contact options at louisiana211.org.

The same site publishes data on statewide contacts, opioid texting, kinship support, and hurricane response, which is unusual for a hotline.

State Police cover the highways and the rural parishes through troops. Troop A answers in Baton Rouge at 225-754-8500, Troop B in New Orleans at 504-471-2775, Troop C in Gray at 985-857-3680, Troop D in Lake Charles at 337-491-2511, Troop G in Shreveport at 318-741-7411, Troop I in Lafayette at 1-888-768-8746, and Troop L in Covington at 985-893-6250. The troop map at lsp.org shows which one covers a given parish. Reporting child abuse or neglect is separate again, and that line is 1-855-4LA-KIDS, or 1-855-452-5437, staffed every day of the year.

Louisiana Municipal and Parish Directories

There is no city hall for the whole of Louisiana, so municipal numbers come from the municipalities themselves. The statewide shortcut is the Louisiana Municipal Association. LMA represents 306 members, made up of 127 villages, 111 towns, 66 cities, and 2 parishes, and its directory search returns the mailing address, the main phone number, the municipal type, and the charter type for each one. That last field explains a lot about who you will reach. A Lawrason Act town is organized differently from a home rule city, and the person answering the phone reflects that.

Search results look like this: Abbeville at (337) 893-8550, Abita Springs at (985) 892-0711, Addis at (225) 687-4844, Albany at (225) 567-1101, Alexandria at (318) 449-5000. The annual printed LMA directory goes further and lists operating hours plus contacts for the mayor, council members, the clerk, the fire chief, and the police chief.

Parish government is its own layer, and it rarely runs through one switchboard. Sheriff offices, clerks of court, assessors, registrars of voters, emergency preparedness, animal control, and public works each publish separately. The Louisiana Clerks of Court Association keeps the strongest statewide list, with a record per parish or court holding the clerk's name, mailing and physical addresses, phone, fax, email, and website. Its Supreme Court entry, for example, shows clerk Veronica O. Koclanes at 400 Royal Street, Suite 4200 in New Orleans, phone 504-310-2300.

New Orleans keeps one of the deepest municipal directories in Louisiana. Departments list direct numbers, so Accounting answers at (504) 658-1517, the Historic District Landmarks Commission at (504) 658-7040, and Information Technology and Innovation at (504) 658-7600.

Its department list is published at nola.gov.

Nearly every entry on that page runs through the 504-658 prefix, which is a useful pattern to recognize on caller ID.

Baton Rouge handles it differently. The city parish uses a searchable staff directory, and its Public Works and 311 entry lists a TDD line at 225-389-2070 that doubles as the after hours dispatcher, covering 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. on weekdays and 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekends and holidays.

Louisiana School, Campus, and Library Numbers

School numbers start with the Department of Education call center. LDOE answers 1-877-453-2721 between 7:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays. Leave a number or an email and staff call back within 48 hours. Callers who need another language are asked to leave a name, a phone number, and the language, and a specialist returns the call in it.

For a specific school, the statewide tool is the Louisiana School Finder, which doubles as the report card portal. It needs JavaScript to run, so if it comes up blank the LDOE call center is the fallback rather than a dead end.

The portal is at louisianaschools.com.

Search results carry the school's contact details next to its performance data, so one page answers both questions.

• Louisiana Department of Education - 1-877-453-2721, 1201 N. Third St., Baton Rouge, with the contact page listing call center hours
• NOLA Public Schools - school and early childhood directory, plus a parent hotline at 504-527-KIDS
• LSU - campus directory support at 225-578-3202, with the A to Z index covering departments
• LSU Health Sciences Center - a searchable employee, faculty, and staff directory for New Orleans and Shreveport
• State Library of Louisiana - 225-342-4913, supporting more than 340 parish libraries
• Louisiana Special School District - 225-757-3370, covering the schools for the deaf and the visually impaired

One caveat about LSU. The old public people search has moved to Workday, and whether a person shows up publicly now depends on their own privacy settings. Some records need a myLSU login. Do not assume every name is reachable from outside the campus network.

Note: LSU Eunice publishes 337-457-7311, where 457 is the exchange inside area code 337 and not the new north Louisiana area code.

Louisiana Utility Phone Numbers

Utility calls split into two piles, and mixing them up costs time. Outage and emergency lines run around the clock. Billing and account lines keep business hours. After a hurricane or an ice storm, the emergency line is the only one that will do anything for you.

Entergy separates them clearly, and its phone contact page lists each one.

Downed lines and gas odors belong on the emergency line, and on 911 first if anyone is in danger.

Water, sewer, and trash are almost never statewide in Louisiana. They belong to a municipality, a parish, a water district, or a private operator, so the number comes from the LMA listing, the parish public works office, or a local 311 where one exists. New Orleans takes drainage and roadway requests through 311. Baton Rouge routes the same kind of call through Public Works at 225-389-3090.

Complaints about a regulated utility that go nowhere locally can be escalated to the Louisiana Public Service Commission, which also runs the state Do Not Call program.

Health and Social Service Numbers in Louisiana

The Louisiana Department of Health is the anchor. Headquarters answers 225-342-9500, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with a fax at 225-342-5568. Mail goes to P.O. Box 629, Baton Rouge, LA 70821-0629, and the building sits at 628 N. 4th Street. The contact page carries a directory of offices underneath, including the Office of Aging and Adult Services at 1-866-758-5035.

The department directory is at ldh.la.gov.

Individual divisions are listed further down the same page with their own lines and email addresses.

Medicaid questions split by who is asking. Healthy Louisiana takes member calls at 888-342-6207. Card questions go to 1-800-834-3333. Providers and pharmacies use 1-800-648-0790 or 225-216-6381. Adult Protective Services answers 800-898-4910. Veterans benefits and the parish service officers run through 877-432-8982.

Vital records deserve a warning. Birth records in Louisiana stay confidential for 100 years after the birth year, and death records for 50 years after the death year. Older ones move to the State Archives. No phone call is going to pull a private certificate without eligibility and identification, so the call is about the process, not the record.

State and Parish Numbers Across Louisiana

Louisiana state agencies publish main lines that route everything else. The Division of Administration answers 225-342-7000 or 800-354-9548. Environmental Quality takes 225-219-5337 or 866-896-5337. Insurance answers 225-342-5900 or 800-259-5300. Public Safety headquarters is 225-342-3095. Revenue uses 855-307-3893. Transportation and Development answers 225-379-1232 or 877-452-3683. Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness is 225-925-7500. Wildlife and Fisheries takes 225-765-2800 or 800-256-2749. On the legislative side, the House is 225-342-6945 and the Senate is 225-342-2040.

Every one of those cards lives in the Louisiana agency directory.

Each card pairs the phone number with the mailing address, which matters when a form has to follow the call.

Consumer problems have their own two lines. The Attorney General runs a Consumer Protection Hotline at 1-800-351-4889 for deceptive or unfair business practices. The Public Service Commission takes utility and Do Not Call complaints at 1-800-256-2397, with a fax at 225-342-2831.

At the parish level, the clerk of court is usually the right first call for records. East Baton Rouge shows how granular it gets: administration at 225-389-7642, criminal records at 225-389-3964, the copy desk at 225-389-3970, recording at 225-389-3985, and genealogy and public information at 225-389-8312. Find the equivalent for any parish through the clerks of court directory.

Note: driver licensing and vehicle numbers run through the Office of Motor Vehicles office list rather than one statewide switchboard.

Looking Up an Unknown Louisiana Number

Work outward from the area code. A 225 number sits in the Baton Rouge region, 318 or 457 in the north and center, 337 in the southwest, 504 in New Orleans, and 985 in the southeast. That narrows the claim a caller is making. If the voice on the line says it is a state agency, the fastest test is to hang up and dial the published number from the agency directory or the state telephone directory. A real office will not mind.

Official sources and commercial ones do different jobs, and it helps to know which is which before you start.

Treat a commercial result as a clue and nothing more. Number portability means a Louisiana number can keep its prefix while moving to a different carrier and a different kind of line entirely. The full walkthrough, including what each tool returns, sits on the Louisiana phone numbers page.

Scam Calls and How to Report Them

The scams that work in Louisiana tend to follow the weather and the news. Utility shutoff threats spike after storms and heat waves, usually pretending to be Entergy, Cleco, SWEPCO, or a local water system. Disaster relief scams follow hurricanes and floods, sometimes posing as FEMA or a contractor. The rest are steadier.

• Jury duty and warrant calls that spoof a sheriff, a clerk, or a court number
• Government impostors claiming to be LDH, Medicaid, DCFS, OMV, the IRS, or Social Security
• Grandparent and family emergency calls, now sometimes using cloned voices
• Romance, sweepstakes, warranty, debt, and bank verification pitches
• Calls claiming to be 988 or 211, which you can defeat by hanging up and dialing those codes yourself

Reporting is worth the five minutes. The FTC takes unwanted sales calls through the Do Not Call report form, and registering a number there also enrolls it in the Louisiana program automatically. The FCC handles unwanted calls, texts, and spoofing at 1-888-225-5322 or through its complaint center. The Public Service Commission takes Louisiana Do Not Call complaints at 1-800-256-2397 or donotcall@la.gov. The Attorney General takes consumer complaints at 1-800-351-4889 and has kept up enforcement pressure on voice providers suspected of carrying illegal robocall traffic.

Note: write down the number, the date, the time, and what the caller asked for before you report, because specific complaints move faster than vague ones.

Community Phone Resources in Louisiana

Louisiana 211 is more than a hotline. It has logged over 869,125 contacts across five years and more than 1.45 million referrals since 2020, working through eight nonprofit organizations that between them cover all 64 parishes. It also publishes data dashboards on statewide contacts, opioid texting, kinship support, Medicaid renewal, and hurricane response.

Language access is documented rather than vague. Louisiana 211 says interpretation reaches up to 161 languages. NOLA 311 puts its own figure at more than 145. The Department of Education asks callers to leave a name, a number, and a language so a specialist can call back in it.

• State Library of Louisiana - 225-342-4913, with a library directory covering the parish systems
• Louisiana State Bar Association - 800-421-5722 or 504-566-1600, with legal aid and hotline listings
• Office of the State Public Defender - 225-219-9305, with a parish lookup for district offices
• Domestic violence - 888-411-1333 through the Louisiana coalition, or 800-799-7233 nationally
• Sexual assault - 800-656-4673

Louisiana chambers of commerce, tourism offices, and local newsrooms all keep their own lists too. They are fine for business contacts and events. They are not a substitute for a government number, so verify anything official against the agency itself.

Phone Numbering Basics for Louisiana

Every Louisiana number follows the same shape, +1 then three digits, three more, then four. The +1 is the country code shared across the North American Numbering Plan. The first group of three is the area code. The second is the exchange, which used to point at a physical switch building. The last four identify the line. Short codes like 911 and 988 sit outside that pattern on purpose, which is why they can never be handed out as area codes or exchanges.

NPA

Numbering Plan Area, the three digit area code at the front of the number.

NXX

The central office code, the three digits between the area code and the line number.

Overlay

A second area code laid over the same territory. Nobody changes numbers, but local calls need ten digits.

Rate center

The billing geography a prefix belongs to, which is what decides whether a call counts as local.

The star codes, the N11 codes, the toll-free families, and the rules for dialing out of the country are collected on the Louisiana phone codes page.

Phone Service History in Louisiana

For ten years Louisiana had one area code. When the numbering plan launched in 1947, 504 covered every parish. The first cut came in 1957, when nearly everything west of the Mississippi River moved to 318. That single line set the pattern Louisiana still lives with, a northern code and a southeastern one, with everything since carved from those two.

Baton Rouge left 504 for 225 in 1998. A year later 337 split off the bottom of 318 for Lafayette, Lake Charles, New Iberia, and Opelousas, with permissive dialing from October 11, 1999 and mandatory use the following March. In 2001, 985 took the southeast outside New Orleans.

Then Katrina rewrote a boundary. Some lower Plaquemines communities that had moved to 985 were served through New Orleans switching after the storm damaged local facilities, and they were moved back to 504. Permissive dialing for the switch started in 2007 and became mandatory in 2008. Area code lines almost never move for a reason like that.

The two most recent changes are both about dialing rather than geography. In 2021, 337 and 504 gave up seven-digit local calls so 988 could work. In 2025, 318 became the first Louisiana code to take an overlay when 457 arrived on top of it.

Recent Louisiana Phone News

The Public Service Commission announced the 318 and 457 overlay on February 18, 2025. Its release set three dates: permissive ten-digit dialing from February 24, mandatory ten-digit dialing from August 25, and the first assignable 457 numbers on September 25. It also said plainly that existing numbers, prices, local calling areas, rates, services, and N11 access would not change.

Louisiana agencies got their own warning a month earlier. The Office of Technology Services issued technology notice TIN 25-02 on January 24, 2025, telling agencies that seven-digit local calls in the 318 region would stop completing after August 25. Louisiana 988 has been running since July 2022 and continues as the statewide call, text, and chat crisis line.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to dial ten digits in Louisiana?

It depends where you are. In 318 and 457, yes, and that has been mandatory since August 25, 2025. In 337 and 504, yes, since October 2021, because both regions had 988 prefixes that clashed with the crisis line. In 225 and 985 there is no overlay and no statewide requirement on record, so your carrier and your local calling area decide. Dialing all ten digits always works, so it is the safe habit everywhere.

Which area code covers my part of Louisiana?

Roughly by region: 225 for Baton Rouge and the capital parishes, 318 and 457 for the north and center, 337 for Acadiana and the southwest, 504 for the New Orleans core, and 985 for the southeast outside that core. Boundaries follow numbering plan geography rather than parish lines exactly, so a location near a border is worth checking. Mobile numbers are less reliable still, since a number can keep its old code after a move.

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

Start with the agency directory on Louisiana.gov to identify the office. Then open the state telephone directory, which lists offices city by city for the seven largest metros. If the person is still not listed, call state directory assistance at 225-342-6600 or 800-256-7777. Personal cell and home numbers are not public, so what you can reasonably ask for is a work line or a department routing.

Who do I call for a small town's town hall?

Use the Louisiana Municipal Association directory search. It covers 306 municipalities and returns the main phone number, the mailing address, and the type of government for each one. That is the most reliable route when a village or a small town has no website worth using. The printed annual directory goes further, adding the mayor, the council, the clerk, the fire chief, and the police chief.

Is a call from a 457 number a scam?

Not by itself. Area code 457 is a real Louisiana code covering the same north and central parishes as 318, and numbers in it started being handed out on September 25, 2025. Seeing an unfamiliar code is not evidence of anything. Judge the call on what the caller asks for instead, and if they claim to be an agency, hang up and dial the published number yourself.

How do I stop robocalls in Louisiana?

Register at donotcall.gov, which also enrolls the number in the Louisiana Do Not Call program. Turn on the blocking tool your carrier offers. When an illegal call gets through anyway, report it to the FTC, to the FCC at 1-888-225-5322, or to the Public Service Commission at 1-800-256-2397. Consumer complaints about a business go to the Attorney General at 1-800-351-4889.