Map of the Telephone Dialling Codes in the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom and the Crown Dependencies have adopted an open telephone numbering plan in the

public switched telephone network The public switched telephone network (PSTN) is the aggregate of the world's telephone networks that are operated by national, regional, or local telephony operators. It provides infrastructure and services for public telephony. The PSTN consists o ...

. The national telephone numbering plan is maintained by

Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, internet, telecommunications and mail, postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-rang ...

, an independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries. This list is based on the official standard, but includes defunct codes and historical changes, including the derivation of the two letter identities, in cases where known. — contains largely the same information as this page. — The original alphanumeric codes in all their glory! Dialling codes do not correspond to specific political boundaries: for example, the Coventry dialling code covers a large area of Warwickshire and the Manchester dialling code covers part or all of several neighbouring towns. When dialling within the country, all area codes are preceded by the national

trunk prefix A trunk prefix is a digit sequence to be dialled before a telephone number to initiate a telephone call for the purpose of selecting an appropriate telecommunications circuit by which the call is to be routed. Making a domestic (national) teleph ...

''0'', which has been included in all listings in this article. ''0'' was traditionally the number dialled for the

operator Operator may refer to: Mathematics * A symbol indicating a mathematical operation * Logical operator or logical connective in mathematical logic * Operator (mathematics), mapping that acts on elements of a space to produce elements of another sp ...

for long-distance calls before

subscriber trunk dialling Subscriber trunk dialling (STD), also known as subscriber toll dialing, is a telephone numbering plan feature and telecommunications technology in the United Kingdom and various Commonwealth countries for the dialling of trunk calls by telephon ...

(STD) was introduced, and so was retained as a prefix for direct-dialled calls. In the majority of areas, the area code still corresponds to the original STD letter code. When dialling from abroad, the ''0'' prefix is not dialled. When dialling within the same area, the area code is not needed, save for a few areas that do require this. When calling from a mobile telephone or through a

Voice over IP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, is a set of technologies used primarily for voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. VoIP enables voice calls to be transmitted as ...

service, the area code is always needed.

Code prefixes

List of dialling codes

For an explanation of the two-letter STD codes used below, see Introduction of area codes. ELNS denotes Extended Linked Numbering Scheme areas, where an area code is associated with more than one place name. 01426, 01523 and other non-standard 01 prefixes were briefly used for pagers in the late 1990s and then moved to new 076 prefixes in the

Big Number Change The Big Number Change addressed various issues with the telephone dialling plan in the United Kingdom, during the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the country was running short of new telephone numbers. Overview The first was an update to a s ...

in 2000/2001. In several area codes, a block of 1,000 numbers is set aside for use as fictional numbers for drama.

Code length

The length of the area code part and the local number part is found as follows: — List of all UK number allocations and their dialling format. The number format '2+8' refers to, e.g. London, numbers using the (020) xxxx xxxx format. The number format '5+4' refers to, e.g. Brampton, numbers using the (0169 77) xxxx format.

Areas with mandatory area code dialling

In the following areas, the area code must be included when dialling local numbers. This enables local numbers to start with 0 or 1 and was introduced to increase the number of available telephone numbers within these areas.

Overseas Territories

Unlike the

Crown Dependencies The Crown Dependencies are three dependent territory, offshore island territories in the British Islands that are self-governing possessions of the The Crown, British Crown: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Jersey, Bailiwick of Jersey, both lo ...

Jersey Jersey ( ; ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey, is an autonomous and self-governing island territory of the British Islands. Although as a British Crown Dependency it is not a sovereign state, it has its own distinguishing civil and gov ...

Guernsey Guernsey ( ; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; ) is the second-largest island in the Channel Islands, located west of the Cotentin Peninsula, Normandy. It is the largest island in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, which includes five other inhabited isl ...

and the

Isle of Man The Isle of Man ( , also ), or Mann ( ), is a self-governing British Crown Dependency in the Irish Sea, between Great Britain and Ireland. As head of state, Charles III holds the title Lord of Mann and is represented by a Lieutenant Govern ...

which use the UK area codes 01534, 01481 and 01624, respectively, telephone numbers in

British Overseas Territories The British Overseas Territories (BOTs) or alternatively referred to as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs) are the fourteen dependent territory, territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom that, ...

are not part of the UK telephone numbering plan. Some are members of the

North American Numbering Plan The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) is an integrated telephone numbering plan for twenty-five regions in twenty countries, primarily in North America and the Caribbean. This group is historically known as World Zone 1, World Numbering Zone ...

(NANP). These calls are treated as international calls. Below are the access codes for the overseas territories:

North American Numbering Plan

Country code: 1 *

Anguilla Anguilla is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is one of the most northerly of the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles, lying east of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and directly north of Sa ...

area code 264 Area code 264 is the telephone area code of Anguilla in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). The area code was created in a split of the original numbering plan area with area code 809. Permissive dialing started 31 March 1997 and ended on ...

Bermuda Bermuda is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. The closest land outside the territory is in the American state of North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. Bermuda is an ...

area code 441 Area code 441 is the telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for Bermuda. The numbering plan area (NPA) was created on 1 October 1995 in a split of area code 809. History In 1958, the American Telephone and Telegraph Co ...

British Virgin Islands The British Virgin Islands (BVI), officially the Virgin Islands, are a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean, to the east of Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands, US Virgin Islands and north-west ...

area code 284 Area code 284 is the telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the British Virgin Islands (BVI). The numbering plan area (NPA) was created in a split of area code 809 on 1 October 1997, when a permissive dialing period ex ...

Cayman Islands The Cayman Islands () is a self-governing British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory, and the largest by population. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located so ...

area code 345 Area code 345 is the local telephone area code of the Cayman Islands. The 345 area code was created during a split from the original 809 area code which began permissive dialing on 1 September 1996 and ended 31 August 1997. When in the Cayman Is ...

Montserrat Montserrat ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is part of the Leeward Islands, the northern portion of the Lesser Antilles chain of the West Indies. Montserrat is about long and wide, wit ...

: area code 664 *

Turks and Caicos Islands The Turks and Caicos Islands (abbreviated TCI; and ) are a British Overseas Territory consisting of the larger Caicos Islands and smaller Turks Islands, two groups of tropical islands in the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean and no ...

: area code 649

Others

British Antarctic Territory The British Antarctic Territory (BAT) is a sector of Antarctica claimed by the United Kingdom as one of its 14 British Overseas Territories, of which it is by far the largest by area. It comprises the region south of 60°S latitude and betwee ...

: +44 (shared with the UK) *

British Indian Ocean Territory The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) is an British Overseas Territories, Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom situated in the Indian Ocean, halfway between Tanzania and Indonesia. The territory comprises the seven atolls of the Chago ...

: +246 *

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; ), commonly referred to as The Falklands, is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and from Cape Dub ...

and

South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (SGSSI) is a British Overseas Territory in the southern Atlantic Ocean. It is a remote and inhospitable collection of islands, consisting of South Georgia and a chain of smaller islands known as the ...

+500 Country Code: +500 International Call Prefix: 00 National Significant Numbers (NSN): five digits. Format: +500 YYXXX Allocations See also *Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom In the United Kingdom and the Crown Dependencies, telepho ...

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

: +350 *

Saint Helena Saint Helena (, ) is one of the three constituent parts of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, a remote British overseas territory. Saint Helena is a volcanic and tropical island, located in the South Atlantic Ocean, some 1,874 km ...

and

Tristan da Cunha Tristan da Cunha (), colloquially Tristan, is a remote group of volcano, volcanic islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is one of three constituent parts of the British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascensi ...

: +290 :* The FCO also forwards some London landline numbers to offices in Tristan da Cunha *

Ascension Island Ascension Island is an isolated volcanic island, 7°56′ south of the Equator in the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic Ocean. It is about from the coast of Africa and from the coast of South America. It is governed as part of the British Overs ...

: +247 *

Akrotiri and Dhekelia Akrotiri and Dhekelia (), officially the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (SBA), is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory made of two non-contiguous areas on the island of Geography of Cyprus, Cyprus. The area ...

: +357 (shared with Cyprus) *

Pitcairn Islands The Pitcairn Islands ( ; Pitkern: '), officially Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, are a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean that form the sole British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the ...

: +64 (shared with New Zealand)

Notes

References

External links

* – includes National Telephone Numbering Plan * – patterns for checking which area codes and prefixes are valid and patterns for formatting each number type, archived in 2014 * – detailed information and explanation * – detailed list with many additional comments {{Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom Telephone dialling codes

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...