Telephone numbers in Costa Rica

Prefix 00 was reserved for international calls, while prefix 9 was assigned to special numbers, such as 911. Toll-free numbers start with 800 followed by 7 digits while premium-rate numbers start with 900 followed by 7 digits.

Before 1994, all phone numbers in Costa Rica were six digits long. The Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, which at that time had the monopoly on telecommunications, introduced a system in which the telephone numbers in every province were assigned a prefix to make them 7 digits long.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 used numbers starting with 3 and many residents of San Jose province had 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.

In 2010, after the end of the government monopoly in telecommunications, prefixes 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 were assigned to private operators.

8-digit numbers are commonly written one of two ways: "xxxxxxxx" or "xxxx-xxxx"

• SUTEL Registro de Numeración (In Spanish)
• SUTEL Plan Nacional de Numeración (In Spanish)

• 800 Toll Free Numbers Costa Rica - Phonebook Database