Area code 246
Barbados telephone area code
Area code 246 is the telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for Barbados. The sequence 246 spells BIM on an alpha-numeric telephone keypad, a nickname for the island.
Telecommunication services and telephone numbers in Barbados are administered by the Ministry of Finance, Investment, Telecommunications and Energy (MFIE) of the Government of Barbados.
As a member of the North American Numbering Plan, Barbados uses telephone country code 1 for inbound routing of international calls. The telephone number format consists of the three-digit area code, the three-digit central office prefix and the local four-digit line or station number. Dialing procedures within the country and abroad conform to NANP standards. Thus, Barbados telephone numbers are quoted per International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Recommendation E.123 in the style +1 246 NXX-XXXX for international use.
History
In 1958, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) assigned area code 809 for use by all affiliated telephone administrations in Bermuda and the Caribbean islands. Between 1995 and 1999, the numbering plan area was divided, and new area codes were assigned to individual administrations. Area code 246 was assigned to Barbados in 1995.
The public source identifies “Area code 246” as barbados telephone area code. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Area, code and Barbados.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3150169. Authority coordinates are 13.170, -59.552. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1958, 1995 and 1999.
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This entry incorporates text from “Area code 246” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.