UK dialling codes, explained properly
Every UK phone number tells you what it is before you answer - if you know how to read the first few digits. This is the whole system on one page: what each range means, what it costs to call, and where the traps are. Written by a UK mobile network, built on Ofcom's numbering data.
Geographic landlines
The classic area codes: 0161 Manchester, 020 London, 01244 Chester and around 610 more. The code tells you the place; calls cost standard landline rate and sit inside inclusive minutes. The only UK numbers that carry location information.
National rate, non-geographic
Numbers with no location, charged exactly like an 01 or 02 call and covered by inclusive minutes. 0300 is reserved for public bodies and charities; 0330, 0333 and 0345 are the standard business choices.
Corporate and VoIP
055 corporate numbering and 056 location-independent electronic communications. Rarely seen by consumers; mostly technical and internal routing.
Mobiles (mostly)
UK mobile numbers, with two traps: 070 is personal numbering (a forwarding service beloved of scammers, not a mobile), and most of 076 is radiopaging. Mobile prefixes have no geography - they identify the issuing network.
Freephone and revenue share
0800 and 0808 are free to call from UK phones (the business pays - including a pence-per-minute charge for the calls it receives). 084 and 087 carry service charges on top of your access charge and are increasingly avoided for customer-facing use.
Premium rate
Paid services: competitions, voting lines, professional advice lines. Per-minute charges vary and must be disclosed wherever the number is advertised. Never call one back unexpectedly.
The 30-second history of UK phone codes
The system is older than it looks. Area codes originally encoded town names on the rotary dial's letters - CHester gave 24, ABerdeen 22 - which is why so many codes still spell their town if you know the trick. PhONEday 1995 inserted a 1 into every geographic code to free up space; the Big Number Change of 2000 gave London, Cardiff, Coventry, Southampton, Portsmouth and Northern Ireland their short 02x codes with 8-digit local numbers; and 03 arrived in 2007 as the fair-priced replacement for the mistrusted 084x and 087x ranges. Each area code page carries its own local history.
Dialling code questions
What are the UK dialling codes?
UK phone numbers split into ranges by their first digits: 01 and 02 are geographic landlines with around 610 area codes, 03 is national-rate non-geographic, 05 is corporate numbering, 07 is mobiles (plus 070 personal numbering and 076 paging), 08 is freephone and revenue-share, and 09 is premium rate. The full geographic list is in our UK area codes directory and every 07 range is in the mobile prefixes directory.
How do I find out where a phone code is from?
For 01 and 02 numbers, look the code up in the area codes directory - each code has its own page with the area, the towns covered and who issues numbers there. For any full number, the free UK phone number checker identifies the type, area and original provider from Ofcom data. Remember that 03, 07, 08 and 09 numbers carry no location at all.
What is the UK dialling code from abroad?
The UK country code is +44. Dial +44, then the UK number without its leading zero: 020 7946 0018 becomes +44 20 7946 0018, and 07700 900123 becomes +44 7700 900123. The same rule applies to every UK number type.
Which UK phone codes are free to call?
0800 and 0808 numbers are free from all UK landlines and mobiles. Everything geographic (01, 02) and national-rate (03) is charged at standard landline rate, which in practice means free inside the inclusive minutes most tariffs carry. The ranges to watch are 084/087 (service charges) and 09 (premium rate), plus 070, which is often excluded from inclusive allowances.
Why do old UK codes like 0171 and 01244 look related?
Because the system evolved in layers. Most 01xxx codes date from PhONEday in 1995, when a 1 was inserted into every geographic code (0244 Chester became 01244). Big cities went further: London merged 0171 and 0181 into 020 in 2000, Cardiff became 029, Coventry 024. Many codes still encode their town name from the old letter dial - CHester gave 24, hence 01244. Each area code page in our directory tells the local story.
Can my business choose a number in any UK code?
Yes. Numbers are no longer tied to physical lines, so a business anywhere can take a number in any geographic code, an 03 national number, or an 0800 freephone line. ONSIM supplies all of them from £5/month + VAT as a Virtual Landline or from £10/user/month on a Landline SIM. Two minutes with the free business number chooser will tell you which type fits.
Look up any code or number
- UK area codes directory - all 610+ geographic codes with a page each
- UK mobile prefixes directory - every 07 range and its network
- UK phone number checker - decode any full number free
- Business number chooser - which type your business should pick