International Phone Codes and Prefix

Why the hell ?

When you make an international call, you need to indicate to the phone carrier that the number dialed is not local. Hence you dial a prefix, then the country code, and then the phone number. Up to this point, nothing special. But, despite international standard set by the ITU, recommending to use 00 as the international prefix, some countries still use other codes such as 011 ( USA & affiliates ) or more exotic one like 000, 001, 0011, 119, 810 etc…It’s a big mess and sorry state of affair.

The solution to the mess

But there’s a nice twist : the GSM Standard ( all mobile phone call ) allow to use the + sign ( plus sign ) as the universal international prefix. And since most phones call are of course digital in nature, most phone carriers now allow to use the “+” prefix even using “fixed line” phone, and even for local call.

Hence it’s a no brainer : you should save once and for all your phone numbers in your address book / contact manager using the + convention : prefix all the phone numbers with +country code and get rid of the local prefix ( usually 0 )

Try our app for macOS, iPadOS, iOS to do this work for you :

International Phone Country codes – the List