Area code 02 — Sydney, NSW and the ACT
02 is the landline code for Sydney, Canberra, Newcastle, Wollongong and most of New South Wales. Government offices, banks, hospitals and many call centres use it, and scammers often fake it to look official.
About area code 02
An 02 number has ten digits, the area code followed by an eight-digit local number, written 02 9xxx xxxx. Under the ACMA numbering plan, 02 covers most of New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and parts of northern Victoria. The first digits of the local number point to a charging district. Most Sydney numbers start with 8 or 9 after the 02, Canberra numbers with 51, 52, 61 or 62, Newcastle numbers with 40, 41 or 49 and Wollongong numbers with 42. From a landline inside the area you can dial the eight digits without the code.
A household or business that changes provider can keep its 02 number, so the network shown for a number only tells you who first held the range. The location is not a guarantee either. Since March 2025 the numbering plan has allowed a geographic number to be used at a flexible location, which covers internet phone services and staff who work from home but still show their office number. An 02 call can therefore come from almost anywhere.
Genuine 02 calls come from government departments and agencies, hospitals and GP clinics, universities, banks and insurers, real estate agents, tradespeople and a great many call centres. A typical legitimate call is about something you already have going on, such as an appointment, an application, a delivery or a renewal. A real organisation will not mind if you hang up and call back on a number you look up yourself.
Scammers often pretend to be banks, government agencies, delivery companies or telcos, and a familiar 02 number helps them look official. Caller ID can be faked, and some networks now flag suspicious calls. Telstra, for example, shows a warning when a call appears local but is detected as coming from overseas, and another when it suspects a spoofed number. No warning catches every scam call, so treat the number on your screen as a claim rather than proof.
If an 02 caller asks for money, passwords or one-time codes, hang up and contact the organisation using details from its official website, its app or your card. If you lost money or shared bank details, call your bank straight away, then report the scam to Scamwatch, and to ReportCyber if it happened online. Look the number up here to see what others have reported, and add your own experience without including anyone’s personal details.
We don’t have any reports for numbers in this area yet.
Other numbers with area code 02
Numbers without reports yet — if one of them called you, add the first.
Operators in the Sydney, NSW and the ACT area
The operator shows which provider the number range was originally allocated to under the Australian numbering plan. The number may have been ported to another network since, so treat this as the origin of the range, not as the customer’s current provider. Source: Australian numbering plan, ACMA (acma.gov.au), and open numbering data from Google libphonenumber