Phosphorus which lies to the right side of the periodic table (group 5) has an electronic configuration in the simple form 2,8,5 and a spdf configuration of 1s² 2s² 2p⁶ 3s² 3p³.
Phosphorus has 5 valence electrons for bonding. As a result, an atom of phosphorus shares its electrons with another atom to form COVALENT bonds rather than removing or adding on electrons to form ionic bonds like the group 6 and group 7 elemental atoms. This is ideal since it would take a high amount of energy to release these five electrons, and it would be unlikely for atoms to lose 5 electrons to donate to phosphorus.