Texas Abbreviation: TX or Tex.?

Texas abbreviation choices compared

All three point to the same state. The difference is the setting. A machine reading mail wants TX. A reader moving through a paragraph wants Texas. You can compare other states on our state abbreviations page.

Writing TX on an address

The Postal Service asks for the city, then the two-letter code, then the ZIP code, all on one line. Capital letters with no punctuation are easiest for sorting machines.

On a website form, pick TX or Texas from the state menu. If the form has a free text box, TX is the safe, standard entry.

AP style and the older Tex.

Until the postal codes came along in the 1960s, Americans wrote state names with longer abbreviations, and Texas was Tex. That form still shows up in older law books, library catalogs and some citation styles.

News writers follow different rules. The style book most American newsrooms use tells reporters to spell out state names in the body of a story. Texas is also one of eight states that it never abbreviates, even in places like lists or datelines where other states get a short form. The others are Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio and Utah. Short names do not need shortening.

Codes people mix up with TX

Two-letter codes are easy to type wrong, and one wrong key can route a package hundreds of miles off course.

• TN is Tennessee, not Texas. Both begin with T, which is where the mistakes come from.
• TE and TS are not state codes at all.
• OK is Oklahoma, the neighbor to the north.
• NM is New Mexico, the neighbor to the west.
• LA is Louisiana, to the east, even though many people read it as Los Angeles.

A simple check: Texas is the only state whose postal code ends in X.

Sample sentences using each form

• "Ship the order to Austin, TX 78701." (address style)
• "Her family moved to Texas when she was ten." (running text)
• "Galveston, Tex., appears on the old county map." (traditional form)
• "State: TX" (a form field)
• "Our band will tour Texas for two weeks in the fall." (news style)

Notice that the traditional form needs a comma after it when more of the sentence follows, while the postal code in an address does not.

Quick tips for the TX state abbreviation

1. Use TX, in capitals, on anything that will be mailed or entered in a database.
2. Spell Texas out in essays, articles, emails and reports.
3. Use Tex. only when a citation style or an old record calls for it.
4. Do not add a period to TX, and do not write it as Tx.
5. Double check you did not type TN when you meant TX.

Want the bigger picture on short forms like these? Our guide on acronyms vs abbreviations explains why a postal code is an abbreviation but not an acronym.