How to Call France from the US

Dialling a French number from the US is not complicated once you know the sequence. What trips people up is everything around it: what your carrier actually charges, why a French customer-service number sometimes will not connect at all, and whether a mobile number costs more to call than a landline. This guide covers the dial code, what AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile charge, and the cheapest options if you are calling France more than once.

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The short answer

On a mobile, dial +33 followed by the French number, dropping its leading 0.

On a landline, dial 011 33 followed by the French number, dropping its leading 0.

French numbers are 10 digits written with the leading 0 (for example, 01 42 68 53 00). Drop that 0 when dialling from the US, so:

• Mobile: +33 1 42 68 53 00
• Landline: 011 33 1 42 68 53 00

That’s the dial sequence. The rest of this guide is about what it costs and what can go wrong.

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French number formats

French numbers are written as 10 digits, always starting with 0. The second digit tells you what kind of number it is:

Prefix	What it is
01–05	General-purpose numbers, historically tied to a region (01 Paris/Île-de-France, 02 Northwest, 03 Northeast, 04 Southeast, 05 Southwest)
06 / 07	Mobile numbers
08	Special numbers: freephone, toll-free, and premium rate
09	Non-geographic numbers, often VoIP or boxed lines

Don’t assume 01–05 tells you where someone is calling from. Since 1 January 2023, French regulator ARCEP no longer requires 01–05 numbers to match the subscriber’s physical location, so someone in Rennes can now be issued an 04 number, and people keep their existing number if they move elsewhere within metropolitan France. ARCEP now classifies 01–05 as general-purpose numbers “without geographical location constraints.” The old regional pattern still shows up a lot in practice (most numbers issued before 2023 haven’t changed), but treat it as a rough guide, not a guarantee.

You’ll see the same number written a few different ways: 01 42 68 53 00, +33 1 42 68 53 00, or 0033142685300. They’re all the same number. Drop the leading 0 in every case when dialling from abroad.

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Your options at a glance

Option	Best for	What you need	Rough cost
US carrier (no plan)	Anyone with no other option, short calls only	Your existing phone	$3.00–$4.00/min
US carrier add-on	Calling France often, every month	A $15/mo add-on active on your line	Free once added
ZippCall	Most people, occasional or regular calls, no monthly commitment	Browser or app + Wi-Fi/data	From $0.02/min
WhatsApp or FaceTime	Personal calls, both sides have the app	App on both phones	Free
Calling card	Largely obsolete	Access number + PIN	Varies

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Option 1: Your US carrier

If you call France through your regular phone without setting anything up first, you’re charged your carrier’s standard international rate. Here’s what that actually is:

Carrier	Rate without an add-on	$15/mo add-on
AT&T	$4.00/min	International Calling: unlimited to France
T-Mobile	$3.00/min	Stateside International Talk: unlimited to France, landline and mobile
Verizon	$1.99/min	Global Calling Plus ($15/mo): unlimited to France

All three carriers put France on their $15/month unlimited-calling add-on. T-Mobile’s version is the cleanest: it covers France with no distinction between landline and mobile. If you’re calling France regularly, every month, that $15 add-on pays for itself fast: at AT&T’s $4.00/min pay-as-you-go rate, $15 buys you well under 4 minutes. Once you’re on the add-on, those same calls are free. For the full breakdown of each carrier’s plans and how to add them, see our guides to AT&T international calling, Verizon international calling, and T-Mobile international calling.

If you’re calling only occasionally, none of these add-ons make sense. You’d be paying $15 a month for calls you might make twice a year. That’s where a pay-as-you-go option comes in.

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Option 2: ZippCall

ZippCall is a pay-as-you-go calling service that works from any browser or app. You buy credit when you need it, the credit never expires, and there’s no monthly fee whether you call once a year or every week. The person you’re calling just answers a normal phone call. They don’t need to install anything.

Calling France on ZippCall starts from $0.02/min.

At $0.02/min, a 20-minute call costs about 40 cents. Compare that to AT&T’s pay-as-you-go rate: the same 20-minute call would cost $80.

France is one of ZippCall’s top 10 calling routes by volume. It’s a route ZippCall sees regularly, not a niche one.

One ZippCall customer, an American living in the EU, described the specific problem this solves:

“I’m an American living in the EU. Cheap audio and video calls with friends in the US are easy, even free, but with banks and insurance companies there’s no alternative to 800 numbers. Standard phone plans here are a bargain for calls within the EU, but stiff charges kick in when you call the US, and with 800-number calls you can sometimes spend half an hour or more on hold. ZippCall has been the too-good-to-be-true answer. When I first signed on, ZippCall promised 5 cents a minute; it very quickly came down to 2 cents.”

Steven Helmling, American expat in the EU

His situation is the reverse direction (EU to US), but the underlying problem is the same one this guide is about: needing to reach a real number abroad, cheaply, without a monthly plan. See current rates at zippcall.com/countries.

Full disclosure: ZippCall is my product. The rates above are still the rates.

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Option 3: WhatsApp or FaceTime

If you’re calling a friend or family member who has WhatsApp or FaceTime, and both of you are already on the app, this is free. Chances are, though, if you’ve landed on this article, you need to reach an actual French landline or mobile number, not another app user. WhatsApp and FaceTime can’t call French businesses, landlines, or the freephone numbers covered below. For a broader comparison of calling apps beyond WhatsApp and FaceTime, see our guide to free international calling apps.

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Calling cards

Calling cards are largely obsolete at this point. Between PAYG apps with low per-minute rates and free options like WhatsApp for personal calls, there’s rarely a reason to buy a card, find an access number, and dial a PIN. Mentioned here for completeness.

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What to watch out for

French 08 numbers usually don’t work from abroad

Numbers starting with 08 (0800, 0805, and similar) are France’s freephone and premium-rate numbers, and in almost all cases they cannot be reached from outside France. This isn’t unique to France. Toll-free and freephone numbers are built on domestic call-routing agreements between a company and its local carrier, and most countries’ toll-free systems don’t extend those agreements to international carriers. France’s Ministry of Economy confirms this directly: 08 numbers are “not generally reachable from abroad.”

This mostly affects businesses. If a French company’s only listed number starts with 08 and it won’t connect, look for their international contact number, it’s usually on their website, often written in +33 format specifically for callers outside France. Some organisations, particularly government services, publish a dedicated landline number for exactly this reason.

Mobile numbers cost more to call than landlines

Expect to pay more to call a French mobile (06/07) than a French landline. The exact gap depends on which French carrier ends up handling the call, so it varies by provider and isn’t something you can predict from the number alone. Whichever service you use, check its rate for landlines versus mobiles before assuming the “from” price applies to the number you’re calling.

Time zone: France is 6 hours ahead of US Eastern

US time zone	Offset from France (CET/CEST)	Major cities
Eastern (ET)	-6 hours	New York, Boston, Miami, Atlanta
Central (CT)	-7 hours	Chicago, Dallas, Houston
Mountain (MT)	-8 hours	Denver, Phoenix
Pacific (PT)	-9 hours	Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle

If you don’t know your contact’s schedule, late morning to early afternoon US Eastern time (roughly 5pm-8pm in France) is a safe window that avoids both an early French morning and a late French evening. France and the US don’t shift their clocks on the same date, so the offset can shift by an hour for a few weeks in spring and autumn.

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The bottom line

The dial code is the easy part: +33 (or 011 33 from a landline) followed by the French number without its leading 0.

The part worth planning for is cost and reachability. If you’re calling France occasionally, a pay-as-you-go app is the cheapest route: ZippCall starts from $0.02/min, against $3.00-$4.00/min on a US carrier without a plan. If you’re calling France every month, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile all offer a $15/mo add-on that makes those calls free. And if the number you need starts with 08, don’t assume it’ll connect at all: look for the company’s international contact number first.

For personal calls where the other person is already on WhatsApp or FaceTime, that’s free and the simplest answer. For everything else, a real per-minute rate with no monthly commitment beats guessing at your carrier’s pay-as-you-go charges. For the full picture on how to make international calls to other countries, that guide covers the general approach this one applies specifically to France.

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