To call the USA from the UK, dial 00 1 and then the ten-digit American number. That is it: 00 is the UK’s international prefix, 1 is the country code for the United States, and the ten digits are the area code plus the local number, exactly as an American would dial it. On a mobile you can press and hold 0 to get a plus sign and dial +1 followed by the ten digits instead; both work.
So a New York landline written as (212) 555-0123 becomes 00 1 212 555 0123. There are no digits to drop and none to add. The brackets, spaces and hyphens in American numbers are just formatting.
Calling a US mobile from the UK
American mobiles use the same area codes and the same ten-digit format as landlines, so you dial them exactly the same way: 00 1 then the number. You cannot tell from the number whether you are calling a mobile or a landline, and it makes no difference to what you pay, either to your network or to us. That is different from most countries, where mobiles have their own prefixes and cost more.
Calling US toll-free numbers (1-800, 1-888 and so on)
You can dial them from the UK as 00 1 800 and the rest of the number, but they are only free within North America. From the UK you pay the normal international rate, and some toll-free numbers refuse calls from outside the US altogether. If the company has an ordinary number, use that.
What does it cost from a UK phone?
More than most people expect. Unless your plan includes an international add-on or a bundle of minutes to the USA, a call dialled straight from a UK mobile is charged at the network’s standard international rate. EE’s published rate for a pay monthly customer calling the USA is £4.64 a minute at the time of writing (September 2026); the other big networks are cheaper but still charge pounds, not pence, and most add a connection charge on top. Landlines are lower but still well over a pound a minute on a standard tariff. Check your own provider’s price list before you pick up the phone, and remember that inclusive UK minutes never cover international calls.
The cheap ways to call the USA from the UK
Planet Numbers gives you three, and all of them work from any UK landline or mobile with nothing to install.
1. Free, using your inclusive minutes
The USA, including US mobiles, is on our free calls service. If your landline or mobile plan includes calls to 0845 numbers, dial 0845 222 6666, wait for the tone, then dial 00 1 and the American number. The call to us comes out of your inclusive minutes, so the call costs you nothing extra. Nothing to register, no PIN. If your plan does not include 0845 calls, the call to us costs 5p a minute plus your provider’s access charge, and nothing more. Full details on the free calls to the USA page.
2. Prepaid account, from 1p a minute
Set up a Planet Numbers account, register the UK phone you will call from, and top up by PayPal from £5. Then dial 0161 328 7777 and the American number. Calls to US landlines and mobiles cost 1p a minute from your credit, with a 5p connection charge per call. Nothing goes on your phone bill, your credit never expires and there is no contract. This is the cheapest option if you call often or call long. Rates and details are on the cheap calls to the USA page.
3. Instant access number, no sign-up
For a one-off call, dial 0843 825 0000 then 00 1 and the number. Your phone provider bills you 1p a minute plus their access charge for calling an 084 number; you never deal with us at all. Handy if you want to try the service before setting up an account.
Which should you use?
If your plan includes 0845 calls, use the free service; there is nothing cheaper than nothing. If it does not, or you call the USA regularly, the prepaid account is the one to set up: at 1p a minute an hour on the phone to family in Florida costs less than a coffee. Use the instant access number only for the occasional call, because the access charge your network adds makes it dearer than prepaid over time.
Mind the time difference
The USA spans six time zones. The East Coast (New York, Florida) is five hours behind the UK, the Midwest (Chicago, Texas) six, the Mountain states seven, the West Coast (California) eight, Alaska nine and Hawaii ten or eleven depending on the time of year. A call at 8pm in London reaches New York at 3pm and Los Angeles at noon. The UK and the US change their clocks on different dates in March and again in October and November, so for a couple of weeks each spring and autumn the gap shifts by an hour.
If the call does not connect
Check you dialled all eleven digits after 00: the 1, then ten more. A common mistake is leaving out the area code because the person you are calling never quotes it locally. If you are using a prepaid account, make sure you are calling from a phone number registered on the account and that you have credit. Anything else, send us the number and the time of the call through the support form and we will check the call record.