International phone number max and min?

What is the max and min digits for an international telephone number? (country code + area code + phone number)

> , where the format of telephone > numbers is standardized by ITU-T in > the recommendation E.164, which > specifies that the entire number > should be 15 digits or shorter,

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_number

Also, check this other question on SO: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/723587/whats-the-longest-possible-worldwide-phone-number-i-should-consider-in-sql-varch

Telephone numbers are standardised by ITU-T in their recommendation E.164. In the recommendation they say telephone numbers should not exceed 15 digits.

So it's up to the telephone operators and local standards.

Most operators don't allow you to send SMS messages to numbers which are more than 16 digits long. So you'll be safe with 16 digit limit.

Edit A nice summary of misconceptions about phonenumbers can be read at https://github.com/googlei18n/libphonenumber/blob/master/FALSEHOODS.md

The answer to that question can (and does) change in a fashion which is entirely too fluid to be able to provide you with a definitive answer. Carriers or countries can change their numbering plans (adding area codes or adding digits or the like) at any time.

A website which I often use as a reference for International Phone Numbers is http://www.numberingplans.com/

I believe they also sell their databases, if you are wanting to validate individual numbers within your own system..

15 digits is maximum, refer this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.164

Although the standard is talking about 15 digits maximum, a call number extension using Direct Inward Dial (DID) and Private Branch Exchange (PBX) technologies is oftenly used in order to call a specific person or department inside an organisation, which can make a phone number longer than 15 digits (note "-1234" suffix at the end):

0049 (30) 123456789-1234

In our systems we use the limit of 20 digits.

Actually, the question asks for an "international" phone number but mentions an area code which some nations don't have. In E.164 the national part was found be no more than 12 digits at the time of writing. Then they added a country code and atleast a "+" for the prefix.

Longer subscriber numbers may be possible however and we know that they do get assigned in some regions of the world. The technical limitation for that can be found in the 3GPP standards (like GSM) and ISDN standards (like DSS1) which have 10 bcd-encoded bytes for the subscriber number - plus a byte for the prefix which can be up to 4 digits to be dialled. That adds up to a limit of 24 digits for a viable subscriber number.