Telephone numbers in Costa Rica

Country Code: +506
International Call Prefix: 00

Before 1994, all phone numbers in Costa Rica were six digits long. The telecommunications monopoly Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad introduced a system in which the telephone numbers in every province were assigned a prefix as follows:

Allocations

Province/City	Prefix
San José and Heredia	2
Alajuela	4
Cartago	5
Puntarenas and Guanacaste	6
Limón, South of Puntarenas Province and Pérez Zeledón Canton	7

Plus, two other prefixes for mobile phone numbers

Mobile Phone Standard	Prefix
TDMA	3
GSM	8

Prefix 00 was reserved for international calls, while prefix 9 was assigned to special numbers, such as 9-1-1. Toll-free numbers start with 800 followed by 7 digits while premium-rate numbers start with 900 followed by 7 digits.

This numbering system was effective for some time. However, the boom of mobile phone customers since the introduction of GSM around 2000 and the expansion of metropolitan areas caused a serious shortage of available numbers. Thus many GSM-based customers use numbers starting with 3 and many residents of San Jose province have telephone numbers starting with prefixes other than 2.

Since March 20, 2008, a renewed numbering system added the prefix 2 for all landlines and 8 for all mobile phone numbers. This system was implemented in order to face the introduction of 1,5 million 3G W-CDMA customers in Q1 2009. The transition to 8-digit numbers was heavily publicized in Costa Rican media. However, the change caused considerable confusion among foreigners. Also, all calls dialed using the old 7-digit version of the phone number are automatically redirected to a voice message with information about the change.

8-digit numbers are commonly written two ways: "xxxx xxxx" or "xx xx xx xx"

Current Costa Rica Number Plan

Country Code	Number Prefix	Fixed or Mobile	Province	Provider
	22XX-XXXX	Fixed	San Jose and Heredia	GrupoICE
	23XX-XXXX	Unallocated	Unallocated	GrupoICE
	24XX-XXXX	Fixed	Alajuela	GrupoICE
	25XX-XXXX	Fixed	Cartago	GrupoICE
	2511-XXXX	Fixed	Reserved to Universidad de Costa Rica	GrupoICE
	26XX-XXXX	Fixed	Guanacaste, Central and North Puntarenas	GrupoICE
	27XX-XXXX	Fixed	Limon and South Puntarenas Province	GrupoICE
	29XX-XXXX	Unallocated	Unallocated	GrupoICE
	3XXX-XXXX to 7XXX-XXXX and 9XXX-XXXX	Unallocated Mobile or Fixed	Unallocated	Unallocated
	83XX-XXXX	Mobile GSM and TDMA	Countrywide	GrupoICE - ICECelular
	88XX-XXXX	Mobile GSM	Countrywide	GrupoICE - ICECelular
	89XX-XXXX	Mobile GSM	Countrywide	-
	4XXX-XXXX	VoIP	Countrywide (cannot receive international calls)	n/a

• NOTE: Numbers with Prefix 25XX may also be used in San Jose and Heredia since all numbers with 22XX has been almost depleted.

Special Costa Rica Numbers

Class	Length	Type	Example
Special	3 Digits	Service Provider, Government and Services	110, 113, 115, 118, 119, 124, 134, 155, 187, 193, 197, 199
SMS Services	4 Digit	3rd Party SMS Content Providers	7777
800 Toll Free Numbers	10 Digits	3rd Party Company or Organization	800-286-0101
900 and 905 Premium-Toll Numbers	10 Digits	3rd Party Company or Organization	900-365-4632

Sources

• ITU (In Spanish)
• Minae (In Spanish)

External links

• 800 Toll Free Numbers Costa Rica - Phonebook Database