The Brazilian telephone numbering plan uses a two-digit area code and eight-digit local phone numbers for landlines and nine digits for mobile lines. Public utility services use short phone numbers (usually three digits), always starting with 1.
Local dialing As established by ANATEL, the Brazilian federal telecommunications regulatory agency, the format for a local phone number is nnnn-nnnn (eight digits) for landlines, and nnnnn-nnnn (nine digits) for mobile lines. The first digits of the local number identify the service associated with the phone number:
100 to 199: special short public utility numbers (see below) 2000 to 5999: landlines 6000 to 8999: Unused (iDEN was disestablished in 2018) 91000 to 99999: mobile phones 0 is reserved for long-distance calls and cannot be used as a local initial digit (see below). 901 to 909 have been reserved for automated system of national collect calls (see below) since 1982 and cannot be used as local initial digits. 900 was used to premium-rate telephone numbers in the 1990s, but is not in use now. Until the 1990s, there were also certain regions in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul with three-digit area codes and five (n-nnnn) or six-digit (nn-nnnn) phone numbers. In the city of São Paulo, although the area code has two digits, there were still six-digit telephones in use; 3X-nnnn phone numbers (with X=4-7) changed to 60X-nnnn and then to 310X-nnnn, 9X-nnnn phone numbers (with X=2 or 3) changed to 69X-nnnn and then to 669X-nnnn (today 269X-nnnn), and 6n-nnnn phone numbers which were changed directly to the eight-digit format (nnnn-nnnn) at that time. Even shorter numbers used to exist in previous decades, especially in small towns and before direct distance dialing became universal. In the late 1990s, the 7-digit landline numbers beginning with 9 in the area of DDD 11 also had their prefixes changed, and their numbers were replaced in most cases by prefixes beginning with 69 (now 29) or 64 (now 24) in the cities of São Paulo and Guarulhos respectively. Landlines using prefixes beginning with 8 and 7 had their prefixes changed up to 2000 and 2001 respectively for 8-digit numbers, and new area codes 22, 28, 64, 66, 87, 88, 89, 93, 94, 97 and 99 are included at this time. Until 2005, some localities still used seven-digit local numbers (nnn-nnnn), such numbers being changed to eight digits (nnnn-nnnn). Except in the case of the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the numbers of 7-digit landlines were given the number 3 preceding the old number, and the numbers of 7-digit mobile phones were given the number 9 preceding old number between late 90's until the inclusion of the ninth digit. In the state of Rio de Janeiro, only the 7-digit numbers beginning with 3 and 8 received the 3 preceding the old number, while the other numbers received the number 2 preceding the old number. In the country region and litoral of the state of São Paulo, in many cases the old prefix of 7-digit numbers have been completely changed, but this numbers standardized with an 8-digit number starting at 3 in landlines and 9 in mobiles until the inclusion of the ninth digit. In the Greater São Paulo and neighborhood cities using DDD 11, the cities today uses numbers initializing with 2, 3, 4 or 5, with the prefixes started in 2 are used mainly in São Paulo and Guarulhos, started in 3 mainly in São Paulo and Osasco, started in 4 used mainly in the metropolitan region and started in 5 used exclusively in numbers allocated to the city of São Paulo except 57 numbers, allocated for rural landline numbers. Numbers beginning with 8 are reserved for mobile phones and numbers beginning with 7 after change of prefixes started for this number in 2001 were initially reserved for trunking, however they were later also intended for mobile phones. Until 2008, the initial digit 6 was used for landlines in some parts of São Paulo and neighbouring cities in area code 11, but Anatel required that 6 be released for mobile use. Fixed-line numbers starting with 6 in that area were gradually changed during 2008 to new prefixes starting with 2. In other areas of Brazil, the initial digit 6 was not in use at that time, so no change was necessary because at this time landlines used prefixes beginning with 2, 3 or 4 outside the Greater São Paulo region. Exceptionally, at the beginning of the 2010s, cell phones with a prefix starting at 5 were enabled in Greater São Paulo, and in this transition period, which anticipated the inclusion of the ninth digit (9) preceding the old cell phone numbers, the telephony used intercept messages to indicate that calls to such numbers were being directed to mobile phone numbers. Today, landline numbers usually use the number 3 at the beginning of the number. The use of the initial digit 2 is occasional except in Greater São Paulo and the state of Rio de Janeiro. The use of initial digit 4 is also occasional except in Greater São Paulo and digit 5 is only used in São Paulo and rural landlines using 57 prefix. Numbers in the 300n and 400n format are commonly used by companies to provide customer service using local numbers. (see below) Numbers starting with 1500 and 1700 are used by some Internet service providers (ISPs) to provide dial-up Internet access. Those ISPs have special pricing agreements with local landline operators and customers are charged less than the price of regular local calls when calling such dial-up access numbers. Local directory assistance can be obtained by dialing 102, but the service is charged as a regular local call in most instances except from payphones. However, all local landline telephone companies offer on-line directory inquiries on their Web sites. Mobile lines are not available for inquiry, for privacy and security reasons.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
