The North American Numbering Plan

Facts about the NANP

• The North American Numbering Plan serves 20 countries including the United States and Canada
• All 20 countries part of the NANP have the same telephone numbering format: NPA-NXX-XXXX, where N can be any digit from 2 through 9, P can be any digit except 9 and X can be any digit. The NPA, short for Numbering Plan Area is the famous area code
• All countries part of the NANP have country code 1

Countries and their area codes within the NANP

Dialing between any 2 NANP countries/territories above

• 1 - area code - 7 digit local number
• example phone call from the United States to Jamaica: 1 876 NXX XXXX

Are calls between 2 NANP countries charged international rates?

With all these countries using the same numbering plan you might think that calls between them are charged domestic rates. This however is not the case: calls between NANP countries or territories are international calls and charged accordingly. The good news here is that these rates are usually not much higher than domestic rates and, in some cases, they are lower (usually not the case when using a cell phone plan).

Dialing to a NANP country from the rest of the world

To call from a country outside the North American Numbering Plan to any of the countries regulated by the NANP dial the following: international prefix - 1 - area code - 7 digit local number.

Example phone calls:

• From France to the United States: 00 1 NPA NXX XXXX
• From Japan to the Bahamas: 010 1 242 NXX XXXX

Complete NANP area code list

Other resources

• North American Numbering Plan Administrator
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Numbering_Plan

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