How to Call Canada from the US — from $0.02/min (2026)

Canada and the US share the North American Numbering Plan, so a Canadian number is dialled exactly like a US long-distance number: 1 + the three-digit area code + the seven-digit number. There is no 011 exit code and no separate country code to add — +1 is both countries' code.

Canadian mobiles and landlines look the same: there is no mobile prefix, so you cannot tell from the number which one you are calling. Common area codes:

• Toronto: 416, 647, 437
• Montreal: 514, 438
• Vancouver: 604, 778
• Calgary: 403, 587
• Ottawa: 613, 343

Examples, as you would type them: +1 416 555 0123 for Toronto, +1 604 555 0123 for Vancouver. From a US phone, dialling 1 416 555 0123 works the same way.

Often it already is. Many US mobile plans include calls from the US to Canada at no extra charge, and some include Mexico too. If yours does, you do not need a calling app or anyone's per-minute rate for Canada — ours included. Check your plan's "international" or "North America" section before paying for anything.

Where it is not free:

• a plan (or a US landline service) that does not include Canada, where each minute is billed as international long distance;
• calling from outside North America — a US number travelling abroad usually pays roaming or international rates to reach Canada;
• calling from a laptop or a tablet with no phone plan at all.

That is where a browser call at a flat per-minute rate is useful.

TwinPhone charges $0.02/min to any Canadian number, mobile or landline, billed per minute and rounded up, with a one-minute minimum and no connection fee. There is no subscription: you add credit from $10, which at that rate is about 500 minutes to Canada, and the credit does not expire.

You dial from a browser — Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari — with nothing to install and no SIM, from anywhere in the world. The rate for the exact number you type is shown before the call connects.

Other services price Canada lower or at zero if you already have them: Google Voice calls Canada free for its users (it needs a US phone number to sign up), and Rebtel and Yolla list about a cent a minute in their apps. The table at the top of this page has the figures and the date they were read.

North American toll-free numbers — 800, 888, 877, 866, 855, 844 and 833 — are shared by the US and Canada. A Canadian business's toll-free line may accept calls only from inside Canada, so from the US it can fail to connect even though it is "free". When a company publishes an ordinary local number next to its toll-free one, dial the local number.

Premium-rate numbers are blocked on TwinPhone, as they are on most calling services, and TwinPhone cannot call 911 or other emergency numbers — use a phone line for emergencies.

Canada spans six time zones, so the time depends on the city, not the country:

• Pacific (Vancouver, Victoria): the same as Los Angeles.
• Mountain (Calgary, Edmonton): the same as Denver.
• Central (Winnipeg; most of Saskatchewan, which keeps standard time all year): the same as Chicago.
• Eastern (Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal): the same as New York.
• Atlantic (Halifax): one hour ahead of New York.
• Newfoundland (St. John's): an hour and a half ahead of New York.

Canada changes its clocks on the same dates as the US, so the gap between two cities stays the same all year — except Saskatchewan and Yukon, which do not change their clocks.

Calls placed from TwinPhone without a number of your own show a shared TwinPhone number, and calling it back does not reach you. If you want people in Canada to reach you on a local number, you can rent a Canadian number from $3.19/month and make and receive calls on it from the same browser; incoming calls are billed $0.02/min from your balance. See Canadian virtual numbers.