How to get a Canadian phone number: Virtual & VoIP options

You don’t need a Canadian address, a Canadian SIM card, or a weekend trip across the border to get a Canadian phone number for your business.

With the right VoIP phone system, you can get one in under 15 minutes and start calling and texting Canadian customers with a number they’ll pick up.

This guide covers how to get a Canadian phone number, why you should get one, and virtual number providers you should consider.

How to get a Canadian phone number from almost anywhere

The best way to get Canadian phone numbers is through a VoIP phone service. These services give you virtual phone numbers from any country they support. Here’s the step-by-step:

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Here are the three steps you need to take to get a Canadian phone number:

1. Create an account with Quo, formerly OpenPhone.
2. Select your city or area code in Canada to get a local phone number — or choose a toll-free number. You can also port in any existing numbers for free. Looking for a specific phone number? Use our tool below to see if it’s available:

3. Start calling and texting your customers. You can text Canadian customers right away. If you’re also texting US customers, you’ll need to file your A2P 10DLC registration for compliance purposes.

After you’ve created your account and selected your number, you can customize your phone settings and add teammates to your workspace.

See how easy it is to create a Quo account in this video:

Why your business should get a Canadian phone number

Any company that works with Canadian customers should consider getting a Canadian phone number. A local phone number comes with a slew of benefits, including:

More answered calls

Struggling to get Canadian leads or clients to pick up the phone? Your country calling code or area code might be the issue. People are often hesitant to pick up phone calls from unknown numbers — especially if they’re coming in from abroad. That’s mainly to avoid fees, scams, and unfamiliar callers. 

A 2025 Canadian report found one-third of Canadians never answer calls from unknown numbers. Among those who do answer, some top reasons are that “the area code looks familiar” or “the number looks local”. 

Greater local legitimacy

A Canadian number signals that your business is reachable and established in their market, not just targeting them from afar. A local presence can be the difference between a prospect trusting you and reaching out, or moving on to a competitor who looks more local.

No long-distance fees

With a virtual Canadian number, your physical location stops affecting what you pay. Calls and texts to Canadian clients don’t incur long-distance charges. Plus, with a provider like Quo, calling to Canada and the US is unlimited.

How to choose a Canadian phone number

The right Canadian number type depends on who you’re trying to reach and how. The three main options include Canadian toll-free numbers, local numbers, and vanity numbers:

💡 How can you check if a Canadian phone number is legitimate? Before claiming a Canadian phone number, check whether it has a history of spam complaints. A flagged number can hurt your answer rates. Search the number on reverse lookup sites like Yellow Pages Canada and Malwarebytes. You can also Google the number in quotation marks, like “800-123-4567.” If it’s a scam or associated with an existing business, public forums or fraud reporting threads will often appear in the top results.

Canadian phone number structure explained: Formats and area codes

Here’s what you should know before you get a Canadian phone number:

Canadian phone number format

Canadian phone numbers follow the same structure as US numbers. That’s because both countries are part of the North American Numbering Plan, or NANP. This is an integrated telephone numbering plan that serves over 20 countries across North America and the Caribbean. But some elements are different.

Here’s a breakdown of your Canadian number’s format:

• Country code: NANP numbers share the same code — +1.
• Area code: The three-digit area code signifies where a number is located. Canada’s area codes are divided among its provinces and territories. More on this soon.
• Central office code: This three-digit code is used to identify the specific network exchange within the broader area code.
• Line code: This four-digit code signifies the specific line connected to the telephone network. 

Put together, the standard Canada phone number format is made of ten digits that look like this:

Canadian phone number area codes 

Canada has over 50 different area codes. The exact number fluctuates as telecom regulators add new codes to meet demand or introduce overlays to existing regions. 

Your area code tells Canadian customers where your business is based, so it’s worth picking one that matches your target market. Quo offers local business numbers in 10 Canadian provinces:

Canadian province or territory	Area code
Alberta, includes Calgary	368, 587, 780, 825, 403
British Columbia, includes Vancouver and Victoria	236, 250, 257, 672, 778, 604
Manitoba, including Winnipeg	204, 431, 584
New Brunswick	428, 506
Newfoundland and Labrador	709, 879
Nova Scotia	782, 902
Ontario, includes Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Niagara falls	807, 249, 683, 705, 226, 382, 519, 548, 289, 365, 742, 905, 343, 613, 753, 416, 437, 647, 942
Prince Edward Island	782, 902
Quebec, includes Montreal	468, 819, 873, 367, 418, 581, 354, 450, 579, 263, 438, 514
Saskatchewan, includes Saskatoon and Regina	306, 474, 639

10 Best Canadian VoIP providers

If you’re looking to get Canadian phone numbers quickly, you can’t go wrong with VoIP providers.  Here’s a breakdown of the best VoIP providers offering service in Canada:

🔍Want a closer look at these providers? Check out our guide to the 10 Best VoIP services in Canada.

How to choose between free vs paid Canadian phone number apps

Apps offering free phone numbers like Google Voice or TextNow work if you need a Canadian phone number for personal use. They help you keep your real number private for marketplace listings, dating, and other online interactions. 

If you’re running a business, a paid app is the way to go. They’re often more secure and give you the features every business needs to keep customers happy. More on necessary features soon.

Already have a Canadian phone number app that isn’t working? You can port your number to Quo for free to keep serving your customers on the number they know and scale with better features.

7 Essential features when you get a Canadian phone number with Quo

With so many Canadian VoIP providers available to you, it can be confusing to know which one you should choose. Here’s why Quo is the best option to get a Canadian phone number:

1. Shared numbers. Want to direct all your Canadian sales or customer support calls to one business phone number? No problem. Quo allows your team members to split responsibility for incoming calls and messages. Your team can even be on separate calls at the same time using a single number. 
2. Custom call routing. Quo helps you manage your incoming calls easily. Choose how your team receives calls with ring groups. Dial team members simultaneously or in custom ring batches. Set up IVR phone menus so your customers can reach different departments on their own. You can also set up call forwarding for during and after business hours. With our drag-and-drop call flow builder, you can set up your call flows in minutes.
3. 24/7 call handling. Never miss a call again with Sona, Quo’s AI voice agent. Sona can answer calls, take messages, qualify leads, and send texts with booking links or other information during the call.
4. Call recording and transcription. Need to record calls to make sure your team is providing a great experience? Or to have a clear communication trail in case a dispute comes up? With Quo, you can set up on-demand or automatic call recording. Then, quickly review them with AI call summaries and transcriptions. 
5. Modern texting features. Quo helps you keep the conversation going over text. Send SMS and MMS messages to your customers. Schedule text messages and reply automatically to incoming texts. You can also end automated messages based on specific triggers.
6. Third-party integrations. Integrations share your call and text data across your tech stack. That way, your customer conversations are available wherever your team works. Quo integrates with over 9,000 tools, including CRMs like HubSpot and Jobber.
7. Easy global calling. Need to make calls or send texts outside of Canada? Quo makes international calls easy. Even if you have a local Canadian number, you can manage unlimited calls to and from anywhere in Canada and the US. Connecting with toll-free numbers is also free.
   
   Get a full cost breakdown with our international calling and texting rate sheet.

Is a virtual Canadian phone number right for your business?

Still not convinced? Need buy-in from the rest of your team and want something you can share with them? Here’s why getting a virtual phone number in Canada is worth it: 

• Affordability. Virtual phone numbers cost a fraction of what traditional phone systems do. There’s no hardware to buy, no technician to call, and no per-minute long-distance fees. Quo’s VoIP plans start at $15 per user per month, for example. Compare this to over $1,000 for an on-premises PBX system. 
• Mobility. If your team doesn’t work from one desk, your phone system shouldn’t either. VoIP phones keep everyone reachable on their existing devices. If you have team members who are on the go, like HVAC techs, a VoIP phone is non-negotiable.
• Scalability. Every business wants to expand its operations. But imagine every time you expand, you have to invest in a completely new phone system. That’s what you get with PBX phone systems. In contrast, virtual phones let you add new local numbers in minutes. You can expand without having to open a new office.
• Higher customer satisfaction. Stop playing phone tag with your customers. No need to provide different numbers or extensions. With shared numbers, your customers can reach everyone on your team instantly. And with AI receptionists, you can reduce your missed calls overnight.
• Better call insights. Traditional landlines don’t have integration capabilities. Your call data is often siloed and isn’t useful to your team. With virtual numbers, you can identify trends in your call data. Your calls and texts can be shared with any tool in your stack, including AI tools like Claude and Gemini. 
• Higher call quality. Traditional long-distance calls are only as reliable as the physical infrastructure routing them. Distance, weather, and aging hardware can affect the lines, and with them, your call quality. VoIP calls are routed over the internet instead. On a strong connection, a call to a Canadian customer sounds no different than a physically local one. 

With Quo’s call quality metrics, you can keep track of your call quality in real time. That way, you can make adjustments to improve how they sound without having to restart a call.

Get the Canadian phone number you need with Quo

Canadian phone numbers are highly beneficial for small businesses with clients in Canada. It helps you develop a trustworthy brand image while avoiding long-distance fees. Using a VoIP service provider like Quo, you can access a Canadian phone number from almost anywhere in the world.

Sign up for Quo’s seven-day free trial to get a Canadian phone number in under 15 minutes.

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