Change the Billing Field Title in WooCommerce Checkout

You want to change the title of a billing field in WooCommerce checkout on your WordPress site. Maybe “Phone” should read “Mobile number”, or “ZIP Code” should read “Postal code”. Most answers tell you to use woocommerce_checkout_fields. That works for some fields. For others the old label comes back as soon as the customer picks a country, and the My Account → Addresses form never changes at all.

This snippet renames labels in the right places. Billing-only fields like name, phone and email change on checkout and on the edit-address page. Shared address parts like postcode and state keep their new label when WooCommerce’s JavaScript swaps labels for each country.

The snippet

Put it in a small plugin or in your theme’s functions.php. Edit the two label arrays at the top and leave the rest alone.

/**
 * Billing-only labels, keyed by the full checkout field ID.
 */
function dpc_billing_field_labels(): array {
	return [
		'billing_first_name' => __( 'Given name', 'dpc' ),
		'billing_last_name'  => __( 'Family name', 'dpc' ),
		'billing_company'    => __( 'Company or organisation', 'dpc' ),
		'billing_phone'      => __( 'Mobile number', 'dpc' ),
		'billing_email'      => __( 'Email for receipts', 'dpc' ),
	];
}

/**
 * Address-part labels shared by billing and shipping, keyed without prefix.
 */
function dpc_address_field_labels(): array {
	return [
		'postcode' => __( 'Postal code', 'dpc' ),
		'state'    => __( 'Region', 'dpc' ),
	];
}

add_filter( 'woocommerce_billing_fields', 'dpc_rename_billing_fields', 20 );
function dpc_rename_billing_fields( array $fields ): array {
	foreach ( dpc_billing_field_labels() as $key => $label ) {
		if ( isset( $fields[ $key ] ) ) {
			$fields[ $key ]['label'] = $label;
		}
	}
	return $fields;
}

add_filter( 'woocommerce_default_address_fields', 'dpc_rename_address_fields', 20 );
function dpc_rename_address_fields( array $fields ): array {
	foreach ( dpc_address_field_labels() as $key => $label ) {
		if ( isset( $fields[ $key ] ) ) {
			$fields[ $key ]['label'] = $label;
		}
	}
	return $fields;
}

// Country locales (US "ZIP Code", GB "County"…) override the defaults, on page load and in JS.
add_filter( 'woocommerce_get_country_locale', 'dpc_rename_locale_labels', 20 );
function dpc_rename_locale_labels( array $locales ): array {
	$labels = dpc_address_field_labels();
	foreach ( $locales as $country => $fields ) {
		foreach ( $labels as $key => $label ) {
			if ( isset( $fields[ $key ]['label'] ) ) {
				$locales[ $country ][ $key ]['label'] = $label;
			}
		}
	}
	return $locales;
}

How it works

woocommerce_billing_fields runs inside WC()->countries->get_address_fields(). The classic checkout and the My Account edit-address form both use that function, so one filter covers both pages. woocommerce_checkout_fields only reaches the checkout.
woocommerce_default_address_fields sets the base definition for address parts (postcode, state, city, address lines). Billing and shipping are both built from it, so a postcode renamed here changes in both forms.
woocommerce_get_country_locale is why renames often seem not to work. Many countries ship their own label (“ZIP Code” for the US, “County” for the UK). On checkout, address-i18n.js writes those labels back into the form whenever the country changes, which also happens on the first load. The filter replaces a country’s label only where that country defines one, and leaves rules like required and hidden alone.
Priority 20 runs after most plugins that hook at the default of 10. If another plugin still wins, list everything attached to the hook with this helper.

Customise it

To rename a shipping-only field, copy dpc_rename_billing_fields and hook it to woocommerce_shipping_fields, using keys like shipping_company.
Field IDs are the name attributes on the checkout form: billing_country, billing_address_1, billing_city, and so on. Shared parts go in dpc_address_field_labels() without the prefix.
To keep a country’s own wording (for example, US customers still see “ZIP Code”), skip that country inside the locale loop with if ( 'US' === $country ) { continue; }.
Placeholders work the same way. Set $fields[ $key ]['placeholder'] next to the label.
The order edit screen in wp-admin uses its own filter, woocommerce_admin_billing_fields, and its keys have no prefix (phone, company).

Gotchas

Checkout block: this snippet is for the classic checkout (the [woocommerce_checkout] shortcode) and My Account. The Checkout block renders its fields in React from its own definitions, so woocommerce_billing_fields does not reach it. To check which one you use, open your checkout page in the editor and see whether it contains a Checkout block. If it does, test there before relying on these filters.
WooCommerce prints labels through wp_kses_post(), so simple markup like <abbr> works. Labels are fixed strings here. Never build them from request data.
Keep the __() calls with your own text domain if the store is multilingual. The strings can then be translated like any other plugin string.
Changing a label does not change the meta key. Orders still store billing_phone, so exports and integrations keep working.

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Change the Billing Field Title in WooCommerce Checkout

The snippet

How it works

Customise it

Gotchas

Three tested WordPress snippets a week