How to Look Up Any FIPS Code in Seconds

Looking up FIPS codes used to mean downloading flat files from the Census Bureau's ANSI reference page and searching through pipe-delimited text. Today there are faster options. The FipsDecoder search tool lets you type any county name, state name, or raw FIPS code and get an instant result linking to a full data profile.

For state-level lookups, the state FIPS codes reference lists all 57 states and territories with their 2-digit codes. For county-level lookups, you can either search by name or navigate through a state page to see all counties in that state. Each county page shows the complete 5-digit FIPS code, the state and county breakdown, MSA membership, Congressional district, and links to the federal datasets that use it.

If you already have a FIPS code and need to decode it, you can use the smart redirect at /fips/{code} — enter a 2-digit code to reach a state page, or a 5-digit code to reach a county page. For example, /fips/53 goes to Washington state, and /fips/53033 goes to King County. This URL pattern makes it easy to build deep links into FIPS references from your own tools and dashboards.

For programmatic lookups in bulk, the Census Bureau's geocoding API and the Census's reference files (linked from our federal data guide) are the authoritative sources. But for ad-hoc lookups during data exploration, the search tool is the fastest path from a name or number to a decoded geography.