List of dialling codes in the United Kingdom


This is a list of telephone dialling codes in the United Kingdom, which adopts an open telephone numbering plan for its public switched telephone network. The national telephone numbering plan is maintained by Ofcom, 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. 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 0, which has been included in all listings in this article. 0 was traditionally the number dialled for the operator for trunk calls before subscriber trunk dialling 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 handful of areas that do require this. When calling from a mobile telephone, 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 in 2000/2001.
The 01632 area code is set aside for use as fictional numbers for drama as are parts of a number of other area codes.

Code length

The length of the area code part and the local number part is found as follows:
Number formatNSNGeographic area code
2+8 only10020, 023, 024, 028, 029
3+7 only100113, 0114, 0115, 0116, 0117, 0118, 0121, 0131, 0141, 0151, 0161, 0191
4+6 only10All 01xxx area codes from 01200 to 01999 not otherwise mentioned.
4+6 areas where part of range is assigned as 5+51001387, 01539
4+6 areas where part of range is assigned as mixed 5+5 and 5+410 01697
Mixed 4+6 and 4+510 or 901204, 01208, 01254, 01276, 01297, 01298, 01363, 01364, 01384, 01386, 01404, 01420, 01460, 01461, 01480, 01488, 01527, 01562, 01566, 01606, 01629, 01635, 01647, 01659, 01695, 01726, 01744, 01750, 01827, 01837, 01884, 01900, 01905, 01935, 01949, 01963, 01995
Mixed 4+6 and 4+5 areas where part of range is assigned as 5+510 or 901524, 01768, 01946
5+5 only100138 73, 0152 42, 0153 94, 0153 95, 0153 96, 0169 73, 0169 74, 0176 83, 0176 84, 0176 87, 0194 67
Mixed 5+5 and 5+410 or 90169 77

The number format '2+8' refers to, e.g. London, numbers using the xxxx xxxx format.
The number format '5+4' refers to, e.g. Brampton, numbers using the 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.
Area codeArea code nameDate effective
01202Bournemouth 1 November 2012
01224Aberdeen 1 October 2014
01273Brighton 1 October 2014
01274Bradford 1 October 2014
01642Middlesbrough 1 October 2014
01908Milton Keynes 1 October 2014

Overseas Territories

Unlike the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man which use the UK area codes 01534, 01481 and 01624 respectively, telephone numbers in British Overseas Territories do not come under the UK telephone numbering plan. Some are within the North American Numbering Plan. These calls are treated as international calls. Below are the access codes for the overseas territories:

North American Numbering Plan