How to Make International Calls

When you place a call to someone in another country, your call travels through a series of interconnected telephone networks. The process begins with your local carrier, which routes the call to an international gateway. From there, the call is handed off to carriers in the destination country until it reaches the person you are trying to contact.

The international telephone numbering system is coordinated by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations. The ITU assigns country calling codes and maintains the standards that allow phone networks around the world to connect with each other. This system has been in place since the mid-20th century and continues to evolve as technology changes.

To successfully complete an international call, you need three pieces of information: the exit code for your country, the country code of the destination, and the local phone number you want to reach. Getting any of these wrong will result in a failed call or, in some cases, a connection to the wrong number entirely.

Every country and territory in the world has been assigned a unique numeric code for telephone calls. These country calling codes range from one to three digits. The codes were originally assigned based on geography and the technical limitations of early telephone switching equipment.

North America, including the United States, Canada, and several Caribbean nations, shares country code 1 as part of the North American Numbering Plan. Most European countries have two-digit codes starting with 3 or 4, while codes beginning with 8 and 9 are primarily assigned to countries in Asia and the Middle East.

Some commonly used country codes include:

Before you can dial a country code, you first need to tell your phone system that you are making an international call. This is done by dialing an exit code, also known as an International Direct Dialing (IDD) prefix. The exit code varies depending on which country you are calling from.

The most widely used exit code is 00, which is standard across most of Europe, Africa, and parts of Asia. The United States and Canada use 011, while some countries have unique codes of their own. Australia, for instance, uses 0011.

If you are calling from a mobile phone, you can typically bypass the exit code entirely by using the plus symbol (+) at the beginning of the number. Most mobile phones will automatically convert the plus sign to the appropriate exit code for your location. This makes it much easier to store and dial international numbers, since the same format works regardless of which country you happen to be in when you make the call.

The internationally recognized standard for phone number formatting is E.164, which specifies that a complete international phone number should contain a maximum of 15 digits, including the country code but not including the plus sign prefix.

When converting a local phone number to international format, the most important step is removing any trunk prefix. A trunk prefix is the digit or digits that people within a country dial to indicate a domestic long-distance call. In the United Kingdom, this is the leading zero that appears before area codes. In some other countries, it might be a different digit or even multiple digits.

For example, if someone in London gives you their number as 020 7946 0958, you would convert it to international format by removing the leading zero and adding the country code: +44 20 7946 0958. The spaces are optional and are included only for readability.

There are several ways to place an international call, each with different trade-offs in terms of cost, convenience, and call quality. The method that works best for you will depend on your specific situation and how frequently you need to call abroad.

International call rates are not uniform. The price you pay depends on several factors, and understanding these can help you find more affordable options.

Destination country: Calls to some countries cost significantly more than others. This reflects the wholesale rates that carriers charge each other to terminate calls, which vary based on local regulations, infrastructure costs, and competition. Calling Western Europe or Canada from the United States, for instance, is typically much cheaper than calling certain countries in Africa or small island nations.

Type of number: Within a country, rates often differ based on whether you are calling a mobile phone or a landline. In many countries, mobile termination rates are higher than landline rates, which means calling a mobile number costs more. Some countries also have premium-rate numbers that cost significantly more to call.

Time of day: Some carriers still offer reduced rates during off-peak hours, typically late night and early morning. However, this practice has become less common as international rates have generally decreased over time.

Call duration: Most services bill by the minute, though some round up to the nearest minute while others bill in smaller increments such as six or thirty seconds. This can make a meaningful difference if you make many short calls.

One of the most overlooked aspects of international calling is timing. When you call someone in another country, you need to account for the time difference between your location and theirs. Calling at the wrong time can mean reaching someone in the middle of the night, during their commute, or outside of business hours if you are trying to reach an office.

The world is divided into 24 primary time zones, though in practice there are more than 30 due to countries that use half-hour or quarter-hour offsets. The Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) system serves as the reference point, with time zones expressed as offsets from UTC. For example, New York is UTC-5 during standard time, while Tokyo is UTC+9, meaning Tokyo is 14 hours ahead of New York for most of the year.

Daylight saving time adds another layer of complexity. Not all countries observe it, and those that do switch their clocks on different dates. The United States and most of Europe change their clocks, but on different weekends in March and November. Countries near the equator, including most of Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America, typically do not observe daylight saving time at all. This means the time difference between two locations can shift by an hour or two depending on the time of year.