Telephone numbers in Europe

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Telephone numbers in Europe are managed by the national telecommunications authorities of each country. The country calling codes start primarily with 3 and 4, however, some countries that by the Copenhagen criteria are considered part of Europe have country codes from the Asia range, starting with 9.

The international access code (trunk prefix) has been standardized as 00, as recommended by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

European Economic Area[]

Country	Country calling code	National number length	Dialing plan*	International Call Prefix
Austria	43	4 to 13	variable	00
Belgium	32	8 to 10	fixed with 0	00
Bulgaria	359	7 to 9	variable	00
Croatia	385	8 or 9 (some mobile)	variable	00
Cyprus	357	8	fixed	00
Czech Republic	420	9	fixed	00
Denmark	45	8	fixed	00
Estonia	372	7 (fixed or mobile), 8 (mobile)	fixed	00
Finland	358	5 to 12	variable	00
France	33	9	fixed with 0	00
Germany	49	3 to 12	variable	00
Greece	30	10	fixed	00
Hungary	36	8 (landline) or 9 (mobile)	fixed	00
Iceland	354	7 (mobile and landline) or 9 (for 3xxxxxxxx)	fixed	00
Ireland	353	7 to 9; 10 (mobile voicemail and Northern Ireland)	variable	00
Italy	39	6 to 12	fixed	00
Latvia	371	8	fixed	00
Liechtenstein	423	up to 12 (generally is 7)	fixed	00
Lithuania	370	8	variable	00
Luxembourg	352	8 (fixed new numbering plan); 9 (mobile); 12 (mobile telematic); 4-11 (historic numbers still active) [1]	fixed	00
Malta	356	8	fixed	00
Netherlands	31	9	variable	00
Norway	47	4-12 (generally 8)	fixed	00
Poland	48	9	fixed	00
Portugal	351	9	fixed	00
Romania	40	9	fixed with 0	00
Slovakia	421	9	variable	00
Slovenia	386	8	variable	00
Spain	34	9 (3 for emergency services, 4 for phone companies, 5 and starting with 118 for telephonic information, 6 and starting with 116 for social interest and 5 or 6 with starting with other numbers that are not listed before for premium services)	fixed	00
Sweden	46	6 to 9		00
All European Economic Area member states apply the European Union roaming regulations. The regulation eventually led to the abolition of all roaming charges for temporary roaming when traveling within the EEA as of June 15, 2017. The European Union international calls regulations regulate prices of calls (and text messages) when calling from your home country to another EEA country.

Other European countries/territories[]

Country	Country calling code	National number length	Dialing plan	International call prefix
Abkhazia †	995 44 or 7 840 (landline) / 7 940 (mobile)	7	variable	00 or 8~10
Albania	355	8 (fixed), 9 (mobile)	variable	00
Andorra	376	6 or 9 (in special cases)	fixed	00
Armenia	374	8	variable	00 (was 8~10)
Belarus	375	9	variable	00 (was 8~10)
Bosnia and Herzegovina	387	8 to 9	variable	00
Faroe Islands	298	6	fixed	00
Georgia	995	9	variable	00 (was 8~10)
Gibraltar	350	8	fixed	00
Kosovo†	383	8	variable	00
North Macedonia	389	8	variable	00
Moldova	373	8	fixed with 0[2]	00 (was 8~10)
Monaco	377	8 to 9	fixed (?)	00
Montenegro	382	8	fixed	00
Nagorno-Karabakh †	374 47 (landline) / 374 97 (mobile)	5	variable	00 (was 8~10)
Russia	7 (shares with Kazakhstan)	10	variable	8~10
San Marino	378	6 to 12	fixed	00
Serbia	381	8 to 10	variable	00
South Ossetia †	995 34 or 7 99534 / 7 997 / 7 929 (mobile)	5 to 7	variable	00 or 8~10
Switzerland	41	9	fixed with 0	00
Transnistria †	373 5 / 373 2 (Moldova codes used)	7	variable	00
Turkey	90	10	fixed	00
Northern Cyprus †	90 392 (landline), 90 533 / 90 542 (mobile)	7	fixed	00
United Kingdom	44	9 or 10 digits (geographic); 7, 9 or 10 (non-geographic)	variable	00
Ukraine	380	9	variable	00 (was 8~10)
Vatican City	379 (never activated)

† = Disputed state, may not be recognized as an independent state by some or all European Union members.

*A variable dialing plan has different dialing procedures for local and long-distance telephone calls. A call within the same city or within an area is dialed only by the subscriber number, while for calls outside the area, the number must be prefixed with the destination area code. For fixed dialing plan it is always required to dial all digits of the complete telephone number, including any area codes, if implemented.

Asian regions with European history or heritage[]

Despite fulfilling the Copenhagen criteria for being part of Europe the following countries are in the Asian numbering group, having a country code starting with 9:

•  Turkey +90
•  Georgia +995

One country that is geographically in Asia but is considered part of Europe for cultural and historical reasons, belong to the European group 3:

•  Armenia +374

Harmonized service numbers[]

The following service numbers are harmonized across the European Union:

• 112 for emergency services^[3][4]
• 116xxx for (other) harmonized services of social value

Single numbering plan (1996 proposal)[]

Proposed Country Code: 3

In 1996, the European Commission proposed the introduction of a single telephone numbering plan, in which all European Union member states would use the code '3'. Calls between member states would no longer require the use of the international access code '00'. Instead the digit 1 was proposed for these calls, replaced by +3 for call from outside the EU. Each country would have a two-digit country code after the 1 or the +3. Calls inside each country would not be affected.

Option 3 : Creation, in addition to providing numbers for special services, of a clear European numbering identity (three digit numbering codes) by using the number "3" to proceed current national country codes (e.g. "333" for France or "344" for the UK). This would liberate up to 50 new country codes within Europe and allow the current codes starting with number "4" to be recycled within the world-wide numbering plan. [1]

This proposal would have required states like Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark and others, whose country codes began with the digit '4', to return these to the International Telecommunication Union.

This would create four different ways of calling someone. For example, to call a number in Berlin, in Germany:

xxxx xxxx (within Berlin)
030 xxxx xxxx (within Germany)
1 49 30 xxxx xxxx (within the EU)
+3 49 30  xxxx xxxx (outside the EU)
+49 30  xxxx xxxx (current system)

Such a scheme would also have affected Spain which uses +34. For example, to call someone in Barcelona:

93x xxxxxx (within Spain)
1 34 93x xxxxxx (within the EU)
+3 34 93x  xxxxxx (outside the EU)
+34 93x  xxxxxx (current system)

States like Ireland, Portugal, Cyprus and Finland, which used codes in the '35x' range, would adopt a different format. For example, to call a number in Dublin, Ireland:

xxx xxxx (within Dublin)
01 xxx xxxx (within Ireland)
1 53 1 xxx xxxx (within the EU)
+3 53 1 xxx xxxx (outside the EU)
+353 1 xxx xxxx (current system)

A Green Paper on the proposal was published, but it was felt by many in the industry that the disruption and inconvenience of such a scheme would outweigh any advantages.

A disadvantage would have been that every local number beginning with "1" would have had to be changed (except emergency number which would be kept).

Another disadvantage would be that people wanting to call France (e.g. Southeast France using +33 4...) using an old number would connect another country like Spain, or people wanting to call Spain (e.g. +34 9...) would end up in e.g. Germany if they use an old number.

The EU proposal should not be confused with the European Telephony Numbering Space (ETNS) scheme, which uses the country code +388, and was intended to complement, rather than replace, existing national numbering plans.

See also[]

• Telephone numbering plan
• National conventions for writing telephone numbers
• European Union roaming regulations
• List of country calling codes
• List of international call prefixes
• Category:Telephone numbers by country

References[]

External links[]

• World Telephone Numbering Guide