Every Dallas neighborhood has one: the pothole everybody swerves around, the vacant lot where the weeds are waist-high, the garbage cart that got skipped on collection day. The fix for all of it starts in the same place, and it is three digits long. Dallas 311 is the city’s front door for non-emergency services, and once you know how it works, you can stop complaining on the neighborhood Facebook group and start getting a tracking number.
Here is what 311 actually handles, the three ways to file a request, what to include so it does not bounce, and how to see whether the city is keeping up its end.
What 311 handles, and what it does not
According to the City of Dallas 311 page, 311 is the connection to most non-emergency city services. The city’s own examples include graffiti, high weeds, litter and garbage roll cart replacement, and the request system also covers everyday headaches like potholes, missed garbage or recycling pickup, code violations, loose animals, illegal dumping and problems with traffic signs and signals. The city’s Public Works department notes that a routine pothole, the kind 311 exists for, is a hole in the pavement roughly 3 feet by 3 feet or smaller.
What 311 is not: an emergency line. A crime in progress, a fire, a medical emergency or a downed power line arcing in the street is a 911 call. And a power outage itself belongs to Oncor, not the city. A good rule of thumb: if it can wait until tomorrow without hurting anyone, it is probably a 311 matter.
Three ways to file
1. Phone. Dial 3-1-1 from inside Dallas city limits, or 214-670-3111 from anywhere, including your cell phone if it does not route correctly. You will talk to an agent who files the request for you and gives you a service request number. Write that number down; it is how you follow up.
2. The app. The city publishes a free 311 smartphone app for iPhone and Android (search for the City of Dallas 311 app in your app store). The app is the best route for anything visual, because you can attach photos and let your phone pin the exact location. A picture of the pothole with a car tire next to it for scale does more than a paragraph of description.
3. Online. The city’s 311 online portal lets you file a request from any browser, no account required for most types, and search existing requests. The same portal is where you check the status of anything you have already filed.
What to include so your request sticks
The 311 system routes requests to the right department based on what you tell it, so precision up front saves days on the back end.
- Exact address or cross streets. “The alley behind 5200 block of Main” beats “near the park.” For alleys, note the addresses on either side.
- The right request type. A missed garbage pickup and a damaged cart are different requests. If you pick the closest match rather than the exact one, the request may get closed as invalid instead of fixed.
- Photos, if you are on the app or web. Especially for code issues like high weeds and illegal dumping.
- Your contact info. You can file anonymously for most types, but leaving a phone number or email means the department can reach you if the crew cannot find the problem.
Before filing, it is worth a quick search in the portal to see whether a neighbor already reported the same thing. Piling a second request on the same pothole does not move it up the list, but you can note the existing request number and follow it.
What happens after you file
Every request gets a number and lands in a queue for the responsible department: Sanitation for carts and missed pickups, Public Works for potholes, Code Compliance for weeds and dumping, Dallas Animal Services for loose dogs. Each request type carries its own target response time, and the system shows you the estimate when you file.
You do not have to take the city’s word for how it is doing. Dallas publishes service request performance reports through the 311 site, showing month-by-month how the most common request types are tracking against their targets, along with maps of popular service requests. If your request blows well past its estimated date, call 3-1-1 with your request number and ask for a status; requests do occasionally get closed in error, and a polite follow-up reopens them. Residents having technical trouble with the online system can email [email protected].
Only inside Dallas city limits
One point that trips up plenty of North Texans: Dallas 311 covers the city of Dallas only. If you live in Garland, Mesquite, Irving, Richardson or any of the dozens of other cities in the metro, your city has its own non-emergency line and, in many cases, its own app. Fort Worth, Plano, Arlington and most mid-size suburbs run their own request systems through their city websites. The Dallas system will simply reject an address outside the city, so if your pothole sits on a border street, check which side of the line it is on before you file.
It is not glamorous, but 311 is one of the few places where a single resident with a phone can reliably make the city do something specific. File it right, keep the number, and follow up. That is the whole game.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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