From an engineer's family in Houston ringing Dhahran to a Chicago couple checking on a mother performing Umrah in Makkah, calls to Saudi Arabia still run into a 2013 renumbering that trips up old contacts, but a correct +966 number reaches any mobile or landline in the Kingdom.
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To reach a Saudi Arabia number from the United States, dial these three parts in order.
011 966 51 234 5678
From any mobile, anywhere in the world, you can dial +966 51 234 5678 instead. Press and hold 0 to type the +, and the phone picks the right access code for wherever you are.
Numbers in Saudi Arabia are written locally with a 0 in front, like 051 234 5678. Calling from abroad you leave that 0 out, so it becomes +966 51 234 5678.
A Saudi Arabia mobile number is 9 digits after +966. If a call does not connect, count the digits first.
Only the first part changes. Your access code replaces the 011, then 966 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 United States is Saudi Arabia's second-largest trading partner - U.S. Department of State, and US goods and services trade with the Kingdom totaled an estimated $39.1 billion in 2025 - USTR. The oldest thread in that relationship is oil: Aramco began in 1933 as a subsidiary of Standard Oil of California, was renamed the Arabian American Oil Company in 1944, and is still headquartered in Dhahran - Saudi Aramco, Wikipedia. Energy and engineering work keeps lines busy between US cities such as Houston and Dallas and the Eastern Province's 013 numbers, while government and defense business runs through offices in Riyadh.
Faith drives the second corridor. The 2026 Hajj drew 1,707,301 pilgrims, 1,546,655 of them from abroad - Gulf News, citing GASTAT, and Umrah brings visitors all year, so American families regularly call hotels and pilgrim-service companies in Makkah (012) and Madinah (014), or check on a parent in the middle of the journey. Family ties form the third. The 2022 census counted 32.2 million people, of whom 18.8 million were Saudi citizens - Saudi Press Agency, leaving roughly 13 million foreign residents, and India alone counts about 2.75 million of its citizens living in Saudi Arabia - Ministry of External Affairs, India. An Indian-American in New Jersey calling a brother in Jeddah is as typical a Saudi call as a Texas oil executive ringing Dhahran.
Inside Saudi Arabia the international prefix is 00: a resident calling the US dials 00 1 and the 10-digit number, or +1 on a mobile - ITU dialling procedures. The biggest outbound flows follow the Kingdom's workforce home. Expatriates sent a record SR165.5 billion in personal remittances in 2025, up 15 percent on 2024 - Saudi Gazette, citing SAMA, and the calls track the transfers: to India, to Nepal, which sent 124,583 workers to Saudi Arabia in its latest fiscal year - myRepublica, and to Sri Lanka, which sent 238,595 between 2020 and 2025 - The Morning.
App calling has a complicated history here. The regulator lifted its ban on internet calling apps in September 2017 for services that met its requirements - TechCrunch, yet WhatsApp voice and video calls stayed restricted for years afterward, and when they unexpectedly started working for some users in February 2025 there was no official confirmation that the change was permanent - ProPakistani. So when an app call to or from the Kingdom fails, a regular call to the same number is the dependable fallback, and residents calling family abroad still use ordinary international dialing alongside the apps.
Dial the exit code: 011 from a US or Canadian phone, or simply + on a mobile or in a browser dialer.
Dial Saudi Arabia's country code, 966.
Drop the leading 0 of the local number: the mobile 050 123 4567 becomes 50 123 4567, and the Riyadh landline 011 234 5678 becomes 11 234 5678.
Check that exactly 9 digits follow 966. An old 8-digit landline such as +966 2 xxx xxxx needs the 1 added in 2013, making it +966 12 xxx xxxx.
Drop the trunk 0 and dial 9 digits after +966 for any landline or mobile - ITU dialling procedures. If a saved landline is one digit short (8 digits following the 966), it predates the 2013 change: insert a 1 right after the country code, so +966 1 234 5678 becomes +966 11 234 5678 - ITU. 9200 unified numbers can be dialed from abroad as +966 9200 plus 5 more digits, but 800 toll-free numbers are meant for callers inside the Kingdom - STC. Every mobile starts with 5 after +966, and nothing in use starts with 52 or 6.
Old contacts can be one digit short. In 2013 the regulator added a 1 in front of every geographic area code: Riyadh's numbers changed on 13 May 2013 and the rest of the country followed on 18 August 2013, and during the changeover callers using the old format heard a recording telling them to dial 1 after the country code - ITU. A Jeddah landline saved as +966 2 xxx xxxx must now be dialed +966 12 xxx xxxx. Landlines and mobiles alike now have exactly 9 digits after +966, so an 8-digit number is almost certainly a pre-2013 landline that needs its 1.
App calls are not a sure thing. WhatsApp calling was restricted in Saudi Arabia for years, and the Communications, Space and Technology Commission (CST) denied reports in March 2024 that the restriction had been lifted - ProPakistani. Even where an app call works, it depends on the other person having data at that moment. A regular call to the 05 mobile rings on any phone, which matters most when you are reaching an older parent or someone traveling between cities.
Named business calls make anonymous ones stand out. Since 1 October 2023, companies and government bodies that subscribe to a caller-name service through their operator can have their name displayed on Saudi phones under a CST specification meant to reduce spoofed calls and raise trust in calls from legitimate organizations - Saudi Gazette. An unfamiliar foreign number with no name attached is easier to dismiss, so a short message first, saying who you are and when you will ring, makes a pickup far more likely.
Toll-free and unified numbers behave differently from abroad. Saudi 800 numbers are sold so customers can call a business free from within Saudi Arabia - STC, and are not a dependable way in from the US. The 9200 unified numbers are the opposite: they are designed to be reachable from all countries of the world by adding the Saudi country code, so from the US you dial +966 9200 and the rest - STC.
Saudi Arabia has six geographic area codes, each now three digits starting with 01. 011 covers Riyadh and Al Kharj, 012 covers Makkah and Jeddah, 013 covers the Eastern Province cities of Dammam, Al Khobar and Dhahran, 014 covers Madinah, Tabuk, Yanbu and Arar, 016 covers Hail and Qassim, and 017 covers the south, including Abha, Najran and Jazan - ITU. The same codes also serve smaller cities in each region: Taif and Rabigh sit under 012, and Qatif and Jubail under 013 - Telephone numbers in Saudi Arabia, Wikipedia.
Each landline is the area code plus a 7-digit subscriber number, 9 digits after +966, and the codes 010, 015, 018 and 019 are held in reserve for future use - ITU. Written locally, a Riyadh office looks like 011 234 5678; from the US it becomes +966 11 234 5678.
Because each code covers a whole region, it tells you roughly where a number is rather than the exact city: an 012 number could belong to a hotel near the Grand Mosque in Makkah or to an office tower in Jeddah. If you are trying to reach a particular branch, confirm the full number on the organization's own website instead of guessing from the code.
Every Saudi mobile has 9 digits after +966 and begins with 5. The regulator's allocations are clear: 050, 053 and 055 were assigned to STC, 054 and 056 to Mobily, and 058 and 059 to Zain - ITU. The 057 range is shared among smaller players: 0570 to 0572 went to Virgin Mobile, 0576 to 0578 to Lebara, 0574 and 0575 to Red Bull Mobile, and in July 2026 the CST allocated further blocks starting 0573 and 0579 to STC, while 0510 and 0511 belong to Salam Mobile - ITU.
Two cautions follow. Mobile numbers have been portable since July 2006, and landline and service numbers since July 2020, so a prefix shows where a number started, not where it lives today - ITU. And the 057 and 051 numbers are just as real as an 050: if a relative hands you a number starting 0577, it is a normal mobile on a virtual operator, dialed exactly like any other, +966 followed by 9 digits.
The code 052 is still held in reserve, and the plan opens a new range starting with 6 only once the 05 block is fully assigned - ITU. A Saudi mobile written as 052 or 06 today is almost certainly a typo.
Saudi Arabia moved its weekend from Thursday-Friday to Friday-Saturday by royal decree in June 2013 to line up with its neighbors - NPR; until then it and Oman were the only Gulf Cooperation Council members with a Thursday-Friday weekend - Arab News. Today the workweek runs Sunday to Thursday, and Sunday morning in Riyadh is a busy working morning, which is still Saturday evening on the US West Coast.
Friday is the day for family and the midday congregational prayer, so it is a good day to reach relatives and a poor one for business. During Ramadan, the labor system cuts working hours from eight to six a day in both the public and private sectors - Arab News, and daily life shifts toward the night: a 2025 national poll found that 28 percent of Saudis do not sleep at night during Ramadan - Arab News. A late-evening call after the sunset meal often finds people wide awake and sociable; a call at the moment of iftar does not.
With no daylight saving time, Saudi Arabia stays on UTC+3 all year - Wikipedia, so the gap to the US grows by an hour every November and shrinks by an hour every March, when US clocks change.
The pilgrimage seasons concentrate calls into two cities. The 2026 Hajj brought 1,707,301 pilgrims, and 1,485,729 of the international pilgrims arrived by air - Gulf News, citing GASTAT. Hotels, pilgrim-service companies and hospitals around the holy sites use 012 numbers in Makkah and 014 in Madinah, and many larger companies publish 9200 unified numbers, which you can dial from the US as +966 9200 and the remaining digits - STC.
If you are calling a relative on pilgrimage, ask before they leave whether they will use a Saudi SIM, and write that number down, because a US number on roaming and a local Saudi number are two different ways to reach them. Agree on a time as well: during the peak days of Hajj, pilgrims move between Makkah, Mina and Arafat on a fixed schedule and are often out of reach.
Short codes do not work from abroad. The national plan reserves 911 and 112 for emergencies, 997 for the Saudi Red Crescent, 998 for Civil Defense, 999 for police and 987 for the command center for Hajj security, all as national-only numbers - ITU. From the US, call a full +966 number and ask someone in the Kingdom to dial the short code.
Yes. Saudi numbers are written locally with a 0 (for example 050 123 4567 or 011 234 5678) that you drop after the country code. From the US dial 011 966 50 123 4567, or +966 50 123 4567 on a mobile - ITU dialling procedures. Mobiles and landlines both have 9 digits after +966.
In 2013 Saudi Arabia added a 1 to every area code, so 01 became 011, 02 became 012, 03 became 013, and so on - ITU. Insert a 1 after the country code: an old Riyadh number +966 1 234 5678 is now +966 11 234 5678. The parallel-running period for the old format ended in 2013.
Originally 050, 053 and 055 were STC, 054 and 056 Mobily, and 058 and 059 Zain, while 057 and 051 went to virtual operators such as Virgin Mobile, Lebara and Salam - ITU. Mobile numbers have been portable since 2006, so the network may have changed. You dial all of them the same way: +966 and 9 digits.
Saudi Arabia uses UTC+3 all year, with no daylight saving - Wikipedia. It is 7 hours ahead of New York from mid-March to early November and 8 hours ahead in winter, and 10 or 11 hours ahead of Los Angeles. The weekend is Friday and Saturday, so Sunday is a normal workday in Riyadh.
A 9200 unified number, yes: it is designed to be reached from any country by adding the Saudi country code, so dial 011 966 9200 and the remaining digits - STC. An 800 toll-free number is built for callers inside the Kingdom - STC, so look for the company's 9200 number or its regular 011, 012 or 013 line instead.
Not reliably. WhatsApp calling was restricted for years, the regulator denied in March 2024 that the restriction had been lifted, and reports in February 2025 that calls had started working came without official confirmation - ProPakistani. If an app call fails, a regular call to the person's 05 mobile rings on any phone, with or without data.
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