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Costa Rica Phone Number Changes

Submitted by Ben on Thu, 2008-03-13 06:42

There is going to be a change in how phone calls are made in Costa Rica. This will affect everyone. Here is how it works - The change starts on March 20th and goes like this:

  • Calls made to cell phones will now all start with 8. So, if your number was 333-3333, it will now be 8-333-3333
  • You can identify a cell number easily. If it starts with 3, 8, or 9, it is a cell number
  • Calls made to land lines will no all start with 2.

    • All calls made inside of Costa Rica, and calls from any other country have to add the digit in order to work.

Here are some links to ICE's (Costa Rica's telecommunications company, pronounced "ee-say". You don't want to get caught saying "ice", you'll get laughed at. :) website:

Costa Rica is growing and the need for a larger capacity calling system is evidence of this fact. There is some rather dry info in English on the strategy behind the Costa Rica telephone numbering system that you can read by clicking here. I have gleaned some kinda interesting facts from that article, is you don't want to take the time to wade through it. Here is an excerpt:

In the year 1994 the change was made from a 6 to a 7 digit system, which it was considered would provide for numbering needs for the next 40 years. However, an explosive growth in the demand for services such a cell phones and RDSI (this is the old ISDN technology that is essentially a souped-up Internet dial-up connection), led to an unforeseen demand on numbering distribution, resulting in certain ranges of geographic distribution becoming limited. Various important events in recent years supported the need for a change. When the mobile system came on line, the digit 3 with a 1,000,000 number capacity was assigned to cover these needs, despite the fact that these numbers were initially assigned to the growth of the fixed telephone system in the Metropolitan Area. With the expansion of the mobile services, the digit 8 was assigned to satisfy this need, which limited the available numbering even more.

ICE is projecting that the change in numbering will service the needs of the country for the next 30 years. If you find this information about phone numbers to be your thing, you can go to ICE's Frequently Asked Questions regarding the change by clicking here.

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