How to Call China

Mainland China's country code is +86, and Phonecall cannot complete calls to numbers in that range. This is not an oversight or a temporary outage, it is a structural limitation of the underlying carrier network we route through. Twilio, the carrier infrastructure behind Phonecall, restricts call termination to mainland Chinese numbers, and that restriction is not unique to us.

Across the VoIP industry, call termination into mainland China is heavily limited by a mix of carrier-level rules and the country's telecom regulations. Many internet-calling providers either block the destination outright or quietly fail on connection. We would rather tell you plainly on this page than let you create an account, add credit, and discover the +86 route does not work. If reaching a mainland number is your only goal, the options below are the realistic path.

The most reliable way to talk to someone inside mainland China is app-to-app calling over the internet. WeChat is by far the dominant communication app in China, almost everyone there uses it daily, so installing WeChat and adding your contact is usually the fastest route to a voice or video call. The call travels over data on both ends, so it is free apart from whatever internet each side already pays for.

If your contact in China happens to use WhatsApp or FaceTime, those work too: a WhatsApp voice call or a FaceTime call connects fine as long as both people have the app and an internet connection. The catch with every app-to-app option is that the person in China must actually use that specific app and be online, none of these can ring a plain landline, a mobile that does not have the app, an office switchboard, or a hotel front desk.

It is worth checking which kind of number your contact is actually on. Hong Kong uses the country code +852 and Macau uses +853, these are distinct destinations from mainland China, with their own telecom systems, and the international-calling situation for them is different from the +86 restriction described above.

So if the person you are trying to reach is on a Hong Kong or Macau number rather than a mainland one, do not assume the same limitation applies. Confirm the number's prefix before deciding how to call. A number that starts +852 or +853 is not a mainland China number, even if the person lives in greater China.

China being unsupported does not mean Phonecall is not useful to you. The service reaches real landline and mobile numbers in more than 180 countries, straight from your browser, no app to install, no SIM, and no download for the person you call, who simply answers on their normal phone.

Billing is pay-as-you-go and per second, with no subscription, no monthly fee, and no minimum top-up; the rate to any supported destination is shown before you dial, and every new account gets one free 60-second trial call. If you also keep in touch with people outside mainland China, Phonecall handles those routes well even though it cannot help with the +86 one.

If you need to reach a mainland China number, Phonecall is not the tool, and we would rather say so clearly than waste your time. Install WeChat, or use WhatsApp or FaceTime if your contact already has them, and make sure both sides are online.

Keep Phonecall in mind for the 180-plus destinations it does support: it is a genuinely cheap, no-commitment way to call real phones abroad from your browser. China is simply the one place where the carrier-level rules put it out of reach.