UK flag

Sending a fax to the UK from the United States is fairly straightforward. If you are using a traditional facsimile machine, just enter the number as follows:

011 – [44] – [fax number in the UK]

The United Kingdom (UK) is comprised of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales.  The country code for all four of these countries is ( 44 ).

How to Send a Fax to London

The area code for London is ( 20 ). To send a fax to London from the U.S., enter this dialing string:

011 – 44 – 20 – [fax number in London]

See what to dial if faxing the UK from somewhere else other than the United States.

Tips for Sending a Fax to the UK:

  • Drop the first 0 in the number for the UK city dialing code. For example, the city code for London is “020” but you’ll drop the leading 0 when dialing from another country.
  • Expect 2 – 5 digit area codes
  • Phone number are between 4 and 8 digits.   In most cases area code and number usually total 10 digits.

Be sure to prefix everything with a “9” if you normally do to access a line outside of your company’s phone network.

It may be necessary to add a pause in your dialing sequence after the “011” to allow the phone network time to connect you to an exchange. This depends on the model and brand of machine, but may be a comma or “#” sign inserted into the number. Dialing with the speaker enabled will allow you to hear what is going on during the call before the connection.

If you have trouble connecting, you may have to lower the baud rate on your machine to ensure a noise free transmission — try 9600 baud rather than the default.

Sending a fax to the UK can be expensive, if you do it often it would be best to use an international phone card or an internet faxing service.

Sample Area Codes in the UK:

Aberdeen 1224 Huddersfield 1484 Preston 1772
Basildon 1268 Ipswich 1473 Reading 118
Belfast 28 Kettering 1536 Ripon 1765
Birmingham 121 Leeds 113 Rotherham 1709
Blackburn 1254 Leicester 116 Salisbury 1722
Blackpool 1253 Liverpool 151 Sheffield 114
Bolton 1204 London 20 Slough 1753
Bournemouth 1202 Luton 1582 Southampton 23
Bradford 1274 Manchester 161 Southend-on-Sea 1702
Brighton 1273 Middlesbrough 1642 St. Helens 1744
Bristol 117 Newcastle 191 Stoke-on-Trent 1782
Cambridge 1223 Newport 1633 Sunderland 191
Cardiff 29 Northampton 1604 Swansea 1792
Colchester 1206 Norwich 1603 Swindon 1793
Coventry 24 Nottingham 115 Watford 1923
Derby 1332 Oakham 1572 Wincester 1962
Dundee 1382 Oxford 1865 Wolverhampton 1902
Edinburgh 131 Peterborough 1733 Worcester 1905
Glasgow 141 Plymouth 1752 Wormbridge 1981
Gloucester 1452 Portsmouth 23 York 1904

International Fax Choices

Another option for how to fax the UK is to sign up for an email-to-fax service such as iFax. These services allow you to send unlimited international faxes simply through your regular email for cheaper than a single long distance phone call to England or the UK.