Generate fake phone numbers that can never ring a real person -- drawn only from the blocks regulators reserve for fiction: 555-0100 to 555-0199 in North America, and Ofcom's drama ranges in the UK.
Telephone regulators set aside small blocks of numbers that will never be allocated to a real subscriber, specifically so that films, television, textbooks and test data can use a number without it ringing in somebody's house. In North America the block is 555-0100 through 555-0199 -- and only that block. The wider 555 prefix, which everyone assumes is safe because of the movies, is not: 555-1212 is directory assistance in every area code, and other 555 numbers have been assigned to real services. In the UK, Ofcom publishes what it calls drama numbers, including 07700 900000-900999 for mobiles and 020 7946 0000-0999 for London, and asks broadcasters to use them for exactly this reason. The problem they solve is real and well documented: numbers spoken on screen without this precaution have repeatedly turned out to belong to real people, who then spend years fielding calls from strangers.
This generator only produces numbers from ranges a regulator has reserved for fictional use -- the North American 555-0100 to 555-0199 block and Ofcom's UK drama ranges. That is the whole point of it. A generator that invents a number matching the right pattern is not making up a number, it is picking a real one out of the number space and hoping, because the pattern is the number space.
Every result here is drawn using crypto.getRandomValues() -- the Web Crypto API's cryptographically secure randomness -- instead of Math.random(), so it's genuinely unpredictable, not just statistically random. Learn more.
Test fixtures and seed data for an app, screenshots and demo accounts, form-validation testing, filling a mockup with realistic contact details, screenplays and novels, teaching material, and anywhere a real-looking number is needed that must not reach a real person.
A range is picked at random from the reserved blocks for your chosen country and the free digits inside it are drawn with cryptographically secure randomness. The area codes on the North American numbers are real, in-service codes -- the safety comes from the 555-0100 to 555-0199 line number, which is reserved in every one of them. Formatting and international dialling codes are display options only and never change which block the number came from.
No. Every number produced here sits inside a block its own regulator has permanently withheld from allocation. That is why only two countries are offered rather than a menu of twenty: these are the ranges that are published and guaranteed, and inventing a plausible-looking number for a country whose reserved ranges are not covered here would defeat the purpose.
No, and this is the common mistake. Only 555-0100 through 555-0199 are set aside for fictional use. The rest of the 555 prefix is ordinary allocatable space -- 555-1212 has been directory assistance for decades, and other 555 numbers have gone to real services. A film that uses 555-2368 is using somebody's potential number.
Ofcom's drama ranges: 07700 900xxx for mobiles, 020 7946 0xxx for London, 01632 960xxx for an area code that does not exist, 0113, 0114, 0116, 0117 and 0118 496 0xxx for Leeds, Sheffield, Leicester, Bristol and Reading, plus reserved freephone and premium-rate blocks. Ofcom asks broadcasters to use these for exactly the reason this generator exists.
Yes -- turn formatting off for a bare digit string, which is usually what a database column or a test fixture wants, and turn on the international prefix for +1 or +44 form. Both are display options; the underlying number is from the same reserved block either way.
Because only some regulators publish reserved ranges, and a generator that guessed at the rest would be producing real numbers while claiming not to. Two countries whose ranges are certain is more useful than twenty where most are not.
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