In this article, a frequency‐reconfigurable planar antenna for mobile handset applications that covers the GSM, DCS, PCS, and UMTS bands is presented and studied. The antenna consists of a single continuous loop element with three connections to a printed circuit board through a feeding point and two shorting points. Additionally, a protruded ground plane is printed on the circuit board near the radiating element. Depending on the switching states of the PIN diode, the reconfigurable antenna operates in a planar inverted‐F antenna (PIFA) mode or loop mode. It is found from the measured results that the PIFA mode covers the GSM band, and the loop mode covers the DCS/PCS/UMTS bands. The occupied antenna volume of the proposed design is 27.8 × 10 × 1.6 mm3, which is quite compact as compared to internal mobile handset antennas that have been reported recently. Good radiation pattern characteristics with reasonable gains have been observed over the operating bandwidths. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 56:1366–1371, 2014