Telephone numbers in the Dominican Republic use area code 809 with 829 and 849 as overlay codes. Telecommunications in the Dominican Republic use the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) country code, 1, followed by the area code in the same form as an internal area code in other NANP countries, such as the US and Canada.
The area codes 809, 829 and 849 are telephone area codes solely for the Dominican Republic. Following the departure of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines from 809 in 1999, no other countries use the legacy 809 area code.
When in the Dominican Republic, the 3-digit area code followed by the 7-digit phone number must be dialed. When calling the Dominican Republic from the United States or Canada, this must be prefixed by the digit "1". From other countries the international prefix used in the originating country must be dialled before the "1".
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Area code 829 for the Dominican Republic operates as an overlay for the local (809 and 849) telephone area codes.
The dual area code system was added to local telephony in July 2005 and later mandatory in November 2005. The new telephony rules were almost wholly due to the explosive growth of the cellular population in the Dominican Republic, starting in the mid-1990s with telephone prepaid-cards being the main propulsion, and growing incredibly through the early 2000s with the launch of two new cell-phone carriers making the major-cellular provider count four nationwide. The 809 area-code used to be the default legacy area code for many other Caribbean areas, including Puerto Rico. In the mid-1990s, the 809 was split and eventually just assigned to the Dominican Republic. Also, the reason for this newly placed dual area code system is that it is estimated the standard 7-digit area code could hold around 9.5 million number combinations, and currently there are around 1.6 million land-based lines and 4.2 million cellular phones. Thus it was decided to attach another area-code to this country, because of the extensive growth and threat of number depletion.
In early 2009 a decision was made to add a second overlay, 849. The triple area code system went into effect on February 15, 2010.[1]
Telephone fraud scams once revolved around the 809 area code; it was being used since calling international numbers from the United States are charged at a higher rate than domestic calls.[2] There may have been a resurgence with wireless telephones.[3] The victim receives a message on their answering machine to call a number with an 809 area code. Since there were many new area codes being introduced in the US, the victim thinks nothing of it and dials the 809 number. The number dialed is however an international number with a share of the revenue going to the operator of the number. The victim is then put on hold indefinitely, and billed for each minute they are on hold. This is actually perfectly legal, because the number is charged at normal international rates, and is not premium rate.[4]
| Dominican Republic area codes: 809, 829, 849 | ||
|---|---|---|
| North: 649 | ||
| West: Country code +509 in Haiti | Area code 809/829/849 | East: 787/939 |
| South: Caribbean Sea | ||
| Puerto Rico area codes: 787, 939 | ||
| Turks and Caicos Islands area codes: 649 | ||
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