UK area code checker

Type an area code, a phone number or a town to see where it’s from. Covers all 611 UK codes in use, taken from Ofcom’s numbering data.

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Where the main UK area codes are

The twelve codes most people are trying to place. Each marker sits on the city the code is named after, which is not the same thing as the area the code covers.

A map of the UK showing the main telephone area codes and the cities they cover. — A marker shows the city a code is named after, not the boundary of the area it serves — 028 reaches across the whole of Northern Ireland, and 0191 well beyond Newcastle. An area code places a call geographically; it never tells you who is holding the phone.

Every UK area code, A to Z

All 611 geographic codes with numbers in use, listed by the place each is named after. From Ofcom’s numbering data, downloaded 23 September 2026.

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Numbers that aren’t tied to a place

Mobiles, freephone, service and premium rate numbers carry no area at all. What each one is, and what it costs you to call.

There is no 0207 area code

London's area code is 020. The digit that follows it is the first digit of the eight-digit local number, not part of the code. So a London number is written 020 7946 0123, never 0207 946 0123. The same applies to 020 8, 020 3 and 020 4 numbers. It matters in practice: dialling within London you drop 020 and dial the eight digits, and splitting the code in the wrong place is how people end up dialling seven. The 020 London area code page explains 0203, 0204, 0207 and 0208 numbers in full.

What an area code does and does not tell you

A geographic code tells you which exchange area a number was issued in. It does not tell you where the caller is, and it has not done for years. Numbers move with their owner between providers, internet phone lines keep a local code while the handset sits anywhere in the world, and caller ID can be set to display a number the caller does not hold at all. A familiar local code is a sales technique as often as it is a neighbour. If you want to know who is actually on the line, look the whole number up rather than reading the first four digits.

Short codes and long codes

UK geographic codes are not all the same length. Of the 611 in use, five have three digits and eight local digits (020 London, 023 Southampton and Portsmouth, 024 Coventry, 028 Northern Ireland, 029 Cardiff). Twelve have four, all big cities (0113 Leeds, 0161 Manchester, 0131 Edinburgh). 582 have five, like 01273 Brighton and 01904 York, and twelve have six: smaller places whose code sits inside a five-digit one, like 013873 Langholm inside 01387 Dumfries. The total is almost always ten or eleven digits including the leading zero, which is the quickest check that a number you have been given is complete.

Numbers with no place at all

Several ranges are deliberately not tied to anywhere. 07 is mobile. 0800 and 0808 are free to call from landlines and mobiles. 0300 is reserved for public bodies and charities and costs no more than a 01 or 02 call. 0330 and 0333 numbers are UK-wide too, and cost the same way. 0845 and 0870 carry a service charge on top of your access charge. 070 looks like a mobile number and is not one: it is a personal number that forwards to any phone, anywhere. Ofcom capped what providers can charge to connect them in October 2019 after they were used in scams, but some providers still charge far more than for a mobile call.

Numbers that will never call you

Ofcom reserves blocks for drama and training so that a number used in a film or a manual can never reach a real person. The main ones are 07700 900000 to 07700 900999 for mobile and 020 7946 0000 to 020 7946 0999 for London. Every example number on this site comes from those ranges. If you get a call from one, it is spoofed, and the checker above says so.

Getting nuisance calls from a code you recognise? How to stop spam calls in the UK covers registering, blocking and reporting. Or report the number so the next person sees it.