From a family in Columbus, Ohio calling grandparents in Jhapa to a Bhutanese-Nepali household in Pennsylvania ringing relatives in Kathmandu before Dashain, calls to Nepal follow one simple rule that trips up many callers: drop the 0 from a landline, but dial a 10-digit mobile exactly as written.
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Rates updated October 31, 2026
To reach a Nepal number from the United States, dial these three parts in order.
011 977 984 1234567
From any mobile, anywhere in the world, you can dial +977 984 1234567 instead. Press and hold 0 to type the +, and the phone picks the right access code for wherever you are.
It depends on the number. Landlines in Nepal are usually written with a 0 in front, while mobiles like 984-1234567 carry none. Remove a leading 0 only if the number you were given actually has one, and never add one that is not there.
A Nepal mobile number is 10 digits after +977. If a call does not connect, count the digits first.
Only the first part changes. Your access code replaces the 011, then 977 and the number stay exactly the same.
A ~ means wait for the second dial tone before dialing the rest. It is not a digit you press.
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The Nepali community in the US grew almost fourfold between 2010 and 2020 - Nepalese Americans, Wikipedia, and the Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey now counts 277,448 people of Nepalese origin, led by Texas (41,355), California (32,110), Ohio (29,612), New York (20,766), Pennsylvania (19,797) and Virginia (18,429) - US Census Bureau, ACS 2024. Notable clusters include Queens, New York, Tarrant County, Texas and Columbus, Ohio - Wikipedia. The same survey counts 27,564 Bhutanese Americans, concentrated in Pennsylvania (11,006), Ohio (4,836) and Georgia (3,655) - US Census Bureau, ACS 2024; more than 96,000 Bhutanese refugees, many of them Nepali-speaking, have been resettled in the US since 2008 - Wikipedia.
Money explains how often those households call. Nepal received Rs 2.36 trillion (about $16.19 billion) in remittances in fiscal year 2025/26, more than the government's entire Rs 1.964 trillion budget - OnlineKhabar, citing Nepal Rastra Bank. A call from Texas or Ohio to a parent in Jhapa, Morang or Kathmandu is often about exactly that: whether a transfer arrived, school fees for a younger sibling, or progress on a house. Students add another stream: Nepal's Department of Immigration counted 45,634 students leaving for the US between 2020 and mid-2026, out of 562,904 who went abroad to study - NepYork. Each of them left a household in Nepal waiting for calls.
From Nepal the international prefix is 00; a family in Kathmandu reaches the US with 00 1 and the 10-digit number, or +1 on a mobile - ITU dialling procedures. The heaviest outbound traffic follows labor migration. 792,187 Nepalis left for foreign jobs in the fiscal year that ended in July 2026, led by the UAE (183,580), Malaysia (132,646), Qatar (132,051) and Saudi Arabia (124,583), with Romania (33,920) the largest European destination - myRepublica, citing the Department of Foreign Employment. The largest numbers came from districts such as Jhapa, Dhanusha and Morang, so many households there have a son, daughter or spouse to call in Dubai, Kuala Lumpur or Doha.
Nepal also treats unauthorized international call routing as a crime. In January 2026 police arrested a man in Kathmandu and seized equipment from an operation that was illegally bypassing international incoming calls through internet-based systems, a raid carried out with technical support from Nepal Telecom and Ncell - myRepublica. Legitimate international calls to Nepali numbers are delivered by those two licensed networks, Nepal Telecom and Ncell, whichever one the number belongs to.
Dial the exit code: 011 from a US or Canadian phone, or simply + on a mobile or in a browser dialer.
Dial Nepal's country code, 977.
For a mobile, dial all 10 digits exactly as written, removing nothing: 984-1234567 becomes 984 1234567, for a full number of +977 984 1234567.
For a landline, drop the leading 0 of the area code: the Kathmandu number 01-4123456 becomes +977 1 4123456, and the Pokhara number 061-523456 becomes +977 61 523456.
Drop a 0 only if there is one. Landlines are written with a trunk 0 before the area code, which you drop after +977; mobiles have none - ITU dialling procedures. A mobile has 10 digits after +977 and a landline 8 - NTA. Smart Telecom's 961, 962 and 988 numbers stopped working when its license was revoked in 2023 - Ratopati. Emergency short codes 100 (police), 101 (fire) and 102 (ambulance) work only inside Nepal - NTA. If a number reached you in Devanagari digits, convert it before dialing.
Drop a 0 only if there is one. Nepal's dialing plan uses a trunk 0 for landlines, written as 01 for the Kathmandu valley or 061 for Pokhara, and that 0 disappears after +977 - ITU dialling procedures. Mobiles are 10-digit numbers beginning 97 or 98 with no area code and nothing to drop - NTA. Mixing the two rules is the classic mistake: adding a 0 in front of a mobile, or keeping it after the country code. Even the regulator's website shows its own number as +977-01-5355474 in its footer - NTA, while its statistics report prints the correct +977-1-5355474 - NTA.
Dead networks leave dead numbers. Smart Telecom's license was automatically revoked in mid-April 2023 after it failed to renew it on time, and its towers and network came under the regulator's control - Ratopati. The regulator's August 2026 statistics list mobile subscribers only for Nepal Telecom and Ncell, and note that Nepal Telecom phased out its CDMA and WLL services from mid-2023 - NTA. An old number starting 961, 962 or 988, the ranges assigned to Smart - NTA, will not connect; ask for the person's current Nepal Telecom or Ncell number. The same goes for 972, the range once assigned to UTL, which no longer appears in the regulator's subscriber tables either - NTA; NTA.
Landlines are almost gone. At the end of August 2026 Nepal had 424,647 fixed voice subscriptions against 29.9 million mobile subscriptions, and only 30,156 of those fixed lines were traditional copper PSTN; the rest were fiber voice lines - NTA. A home number that worked years ago may have been cut, so if a landline rings out, try the family's mobile.
Numbers may arrive in Devanagari digits. Official pages and family messages in Nepali often write phone numbers in Devanagari numerals: the regulator's Nepali contact block lists +९à¥à¥-१-५३५५४à¥à¥ª, which is +977-1-5355474 - NTA. Convert digit by digit (० is 0, १ is 1, ५ is 5, ॠis 7, ९ is 9) before you dial, and count the result: 10 digits for a mobile, 8 after the country code for a landline.
Nepal's fixed-line numbers have 8 digits after +977. Inside the Kathmandu valley the area code is a single 1, followed by an operator digit and 6 more digits; everywhere else it is a two-digit code, an operator digit and 5 digits - NTA. The valley's single code also covers Lalitpur (Patan) and Bhaktapur - ITU. Nepal Telecom's landlines use operator digits 4, 5 and 6, so a Kathmandu number is written locally as 01-4xxxxxx or 01-5xxxxxx and dialed from the US as +977 1 4xxxxxx.
The format dates to 14 March 2003, when Nepal lengthened every fixed number to fit an 8-digit national plan and routed international calls to old-format numbers to a recorded announcement - ITU. The area codes listed in that plan still point to the main towns: 21 Biratnagar, 25 Dharan, 41 Janakpur, 51 Birgunj, 56 Bharatpur in Chitwan, 57 Hetauda, 61 Pokhara, 71 Butwal and Bhairahawa, 81 Nepalgunj, 91 Dhangadhi and 99 Mahendranagar - ITU.
Mobiles follow a different logic: 10 digits, made of a two-digit system code (98 or 97, with 96 also in the plan), an operator digit and 7 subscriber digits - NTA. There is no area code and no trunk 0, so a number written 984-1234567 is dialed from the US as +977 984 1234567, whether the phone is in Kathmandu, a Terai town or a mountain village.
Two operators hold nearly all of Nepal's phone subscriptions. At the end of August 2026, state-owned Nepal Telecom (Nepal Doorsanchar Company) had 15,885,028 mobile subscribers and Ncell had 14,046,382, a split of about 54 to 46 percent of voice subscriptions - NTA. Nepal Telecom's mobile numbers begin 984, 985, 986, 974, 975 or 976, and Ncell's begin 980, 981, 982 or 970 - NTA.
Mobile subscriptions equal about 103 percent of the population, against about 1.5 percent for fixed lines - NTA, which means the mobile is how you reach nearly everyone, from Kathmandu apartments to villages in the hills. Subscriptions outnumber people, so some carry two SIMs; if a relative gives you two numbers, both are probably theirs and worth saving.
The regulator's own tables still use the older company name Ncell Axiata Limited in the numbering plan, while its 2026 statistics list Ncell Company Ltd. - NTA; NTA. The change does not affect numbers: an Ncell 980 or 981 line dials exactly as before, as +977 followed by the 10 digits.
Nepal runs its civil life on the Bikram Sambat calendar, which starts its year in Baisakh and usually runs 57 years ahead of the Gregorian count - Vikram Samvat, Wikipedia. The year 2083 BS began on 14 April 2026 - Radio Nepal, so a relative who mentions Kartik 4 means a day in late October, not a date you will find on a US calendar.
The biggest calling season is autumn. In 2026 Dashain begins with Ghatasthapana on Sunday 11 October - Hamro Patro and peaks with the Vijaya Dashami tika on Wednesday 21 October - Hamro Patro, and Tihar's Laxmi Puja falls on Sunday 8 November - Hamro Patro. Families gather, offices close, and a call from abroad on tika day is part of the celebration.
The weekly rhythm changed in 2026. After a fuel crisis, the government made Saturday and Sunday the weekly holidays for government offices and schools from April, replacing the old Saturday-only weekend, and moved office hours to 9am to 5pm on weekdays - Al Jazeera. In August the government said the two-day weekend would remain - Nepalnews, but lawmakers were still urging a review in September - Radio Nepal, so check before counting on a Sunday office visit.
Nepal Standard Time is one of only three time zones with a 45-minute offset. It is UTC+5:45, adopted in 1986 when the country moved its clocks 15 minutes ahead of Indian time, and its meridian runs through the peak of Gaurishankar, about 100 kilometres east of Kathmandu - Nepal Standard Time, Wikipedia. There is no daylight saving time.
Against the US that produces awkward gaps: 9 hours 45 minutes ahead of New York from mid-March to early November and 10 hours 45 minutes ahead in winter, and 12:45 or 13:45 ahead of Los Angeles. A 9am call from New York in summer reaches Kathmandu at 6:45pm; a 9pm call reaches it at 6:45am the next morning, when many households are already up.
The 15-minute gap with India matters for families spread across the border. A call arranged for 8pm Delhi time happens at 8:15pm in Kathmandu. When you schedule a call in a calendar app, choose the Kathmandu time zone itself rather than a city in India or a generic UTC+5:30 setting.
Only for landlines. A Kathmandu landline written 01-4123456 becomes 011 977 1 4123456 from the US - ITU dialling procedures. Mobiles have no 0: a number written 984-1234567 is dialed 011 977 984 1234567, or +977 984 1234567 on a mobile. A mobile has 10 digits after +977, a landline 8.
Dial 011 977 and then the full 10-digit mobile number, which starts with 98 or 97, for example 011 977 984 1234567 - NTA. Do not add a 0 and do not remove any digits. On a mobile phone or browser dialer, +977 984 1234567 works the same way.
Nepal uses UTC+5:45 all year - Nepal Standard Time, Wikipedia. It is 9 hours 45 minutes ahead of New York from mid-March to early November and 10 hours 45 minutes ahead in winter, and 12:45 or 13:45 ahead of Los Angeles. A 9am New York call in summer reaches Kathmandu at 6:45pm.
Not government offices or schools, for now. Since April 2026 they close on Saturday and Sunday and work 9am to 5pm on weekdays - Al Jazeera, and the government said in August the arrangement would stay - Nepalnews. Lawmakers have asked for a review, so private businesses and future rules may differ.
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