Costa Rica: SIP providers and connecting a number to the PBX

We do not issue numbers: the venue buys a Costa Rican number from a carrier and brings it into its own PBX as a trunk. Everything that is the same in any country — trunk modes, form fields, network requirements and the connectivity test — is described in the overview «Connecting a provider's number to the PBX». This page covers the Costa Rican part only: where to get the number, what to enter in the admin panel and what people trip over in this country.

The data was collected on 9–10 September 2026 from the providers' own documentation, from the approved standard contracts and from the numbering register of the regulator SUTEL; the links are in the «Sources» section.

In brief#

• You can buy a number with a trunk for your own PBX in Costa Rica, and the market is open for it. Voice may be sold by any carrier holding a SUTEL authorisation (título habilitante), numbering is allocated by the regulator itself, and a dedicated 4XXX-XXXX block exists specifically for IP telephony — that is where the numbers carriers attach to trunks live.
• First choice — Ring / sip.cr. It is the only local carrier that publicly states both its authentication modes (by IP, by registration or digest — «pick what best fits your PBX») and its codecs (G.711 μ-law/A-law and Opus). A trunk is activated by self-service in minutes: channels from $4 a month, a number from $3, per-second billing.
• The main local trap is how the incumbents deliver a trunk. With ICE/kölbi the «troncal SIP» arrives over its own access link in private addressing: the customer is given an address such as 10.197.48.146/30 while the carrier's servers sit in the 10.181.12.0/24 network. Our dedicated PBX lives in the cloud and physically cannot reach such a network. Claro and Liberty word their products the same way («conectividad privada», «E1 over IP») — ask them outright whether the trunk is delivered to a public static address of an external PBX.
• The second most common failure is codecs. In the published CallMyWay configurations G.729 comes first, and InterPhone lists «G729, PCMU, PCMA». The PBX speaks G.711 and G.722: demand G.711 A/µ first in the list, in writing, otherwise the call will connect with no audio.
• An eight-digit number versus matching on seven digits. The PBX compares the last seven digits, while a Costa Rican number is exactly eight — the first digit is dropped, and it is the very one that tells a landline 2 from IP telephony 4 and from a mobile 6/7/8. One number per location is fine; when ordering a second one, check the endings.
• The invoice is higher than the price list. On top of the price come 13 % VAT and two regulated levies: Cruz Roja 1 % and 9-1-1 0.75 %.

Numbers in the country#

• The country code is +506. The national number is exactly 8 digits with no trunk prefix: inside the country all eight are dialled as they are. An international outbound call is 00 + country code + number.
• Ranges according to the SUTEL numbering register of 23 July 2026:
  • 2XXX-XXXX — fixed telephony (some blocks are marked as fixed telephony over IP);
  • 4XXX-XXXX — IP telephony services, and this is where carriers take the numbers they attach to trunks: 4000 CallMyWay, 4010 R&H, 4020 Navégalo, 4030 Millicom, 4050 American Data, 4070 InterPhone, 4080 Telecable, 4100 Liberty, 4205 Metrocom, 4300 Antares, 4400 Claro, 4600 Ring, 4900 DIDWW CR;
  • 6XXX / 7XXX / 8XXX — mobile (Liberty, Claro and ICE respectively);
  • 800-XXXXXXX — toll-free for the caller, dialled as 10 digits; 905 — premium services; 1XXX — short service codes; 19XX — carrier preselection codes.
• The emergency number is 911 (the short 112 is routed there too). The 9-1-1 and Cruz Roja levies appear as separate lines on the carrier's invoice.
• The form in which the number arrives in the call is not documented publicly by any Costa Rican carrier: in practice it is either 8 digits or 506 + 8 digits. The question is on the «What to ask the provider» list, and the routing rule is easier to write after the first real inbound call.

⚠️ About matching on seven digits. The format of the number on the «Lines» tab does not matter — the PBX compares the last seven digits anyway. But with eight-digit numbering that means 2255-1234 and 4255-1234 share the same tail as far as the PBX is concerned. In an account with several numbers, check the endings of every line already configured before adding a new one.

Who issues a number with a SIP trunk#

Ring / sip.cr#

A «100 % IP» Costa Rican carrier holding SUTEL authorisation RCS-251-2019, with its own autonomous system, points of presence in San José and Virginia, a direct interconnect with the national telephone network and its own numbering block +506 4600-XXXX. Trunks are sold as a separate product at sip.cr: sign-up, instant activation, no commitments; a channel (one simultaneous call) costs from $4 a month, a number from $3, minutes are billed per second and invoices are issued as Costa Rican electronic invoices. For us this is the best option in the country: the carrier explicitly lists both of the authentication modes we need and the G.711 μ-law/A-law codecs.

What to enter in the admin panel (Telephony → «Trunks and connections» → «Add provider» → the «SIP trunk (custom provider)» card):

What to set up on the provider's side: create the trunk and pick the authentication method → for the IP mode hand over the public static address of the PBX (the «Server» tab, the «Static IP» field) → set the number of simultaneous channels → buy a +506 number and point it at the trunk → leave G.711 in the codec list.

Pitfalls ⚠️ The product is marketed as a trunk «for AI voice agents» — that is marketing only, the SIP side is ordinary and Asterisk is named among the compatible platforms. The carrier publishes no technical documentation with an address and a port at all: the documentation subdomains do not resolve, and everything is issued in the portal. Opus, offered as the second codec, is of no use to our PBX — stay on G.711.

Source: sip.cr — Elastic SIP Trunks · Ring — Cumplimiento y regulación — 09.09.2026.

CallMyWay#

One of the oldest Costa Rican IP telephony carriers: authorisation SUTEL-TH-003, its own 4000-XXXX numbering block, preselection code 1900. It sells both a cloud contact centre and plain SIP lines with trunks. A trunk account is issued as a seven-digit login and an eleven-character password together with a SIP domain to register against.

What to enter in the admin panel:

What to set up on the provider's side: ask for a trunk, not a «line» for a softphone → demand in writing that G.711 (PCMU/PCMA) be enabled in the codec list → point the purchased +506 4000-XXXX number at that endpoint → if needed, enable the caller-ID filter for inbound calls in the portal.

Pitfalls ⚠️ In the published configurations the carrier puts G.729 first, and our PBX does not speak it: without G.711 explicitly enabled the media stream silently fails to come up — the call connects but there is no audio. Second: the documentation section of the carrier's website returns an error and parameters arrive only by e-mail from support, so verify the server address against the activation letter rather than against this page alone.

Source: CallMyWay — Llamadas Telefónicas IP SIP por Internet · Consulting Cloud — configurations of Costa Rican providers — 09.09.2026.

Navégalo#

A Costa Rican carrier and data centre operator (own facilities in Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia and Miami) with a telephony arm: a cloud PBX, SIP trunking, Costa Rican and US numbers, SMS campaigns. Its IP telephony numbering is the 4020-XXXX block, and it also holds its own 800 numbers. What matters for us is that the trunk is sold as a separate line item rather than only together with their cloud PBX — so the «your own PBX» scenario is a normal one here.

Public price list: a SIP trunk at $5 a month (2 channels included), an extra channel $2, a local number $2, a toll-free 800 $25, a US/Canada number $7.99, and the «E1 IP» package (100 consecutive numbers, 30 channels and 1,800 minutes to fixed numbers in the country) $129.99. On top of that come 13 % VAT and the Cruz Roja 1 % and 9-1-1 0.75 % levies.

What to enter in the admin panel:

What to set up on the provider's side: order the «SIP Trunk» item with the number of channels you need → buy a local number (and an 800 one if required) and ask for it to be pointed at the trunk → agree G.711 in the codec list → if authentication by address is offered, hand over the PBX static IP → check whether the provider passes media on UDP 10000–20000.

Pitfalls ⚠️ The price list is published in dollars and excludes taxes: the actual invoice is roughly 15 % higher. The English and Spanish versions of the website may differ in what the packages contain — pin the contents down in the order. The carrier does not describe the trunk parameters (address, codecs, the number format in the call) publicly: collect them from the list of questions before paying.

Source: Navégalo — Business VoIP & Cloud PBX — 09.09.2026.

InterPhone#

A Costa Rican IP telephony carrier holding SUTEL authorisation TH-037, with an office in San José and its own 4070-XXXX numbering. The product for us is «Troncal SIP-AIX»: simultaneous calls in packages of 5 channels for $20 a month, 10 for $50 and 30 for $100, paid monthly or annually; a Costa Rican number costs $5 a month. This is the only local carrier that publishes its codec list right on the website: «Soporte codec G729, PCMU, PCMA», meaning G.711 is available, and it advertises direct dialling into the extensions of your own PBX.

What to enter in the admin panel:

What to set up on the provider's side: choose the channel package → ask for PCMA/PCMU to be put first in the codec list → point the number at the trunk → if needed, enable direct dialling into extensions (a number range on the trunk) → clarify in which form the number arrives in the call.

Pitfalls ⚠️ There is no self-service: activation goes through an agent, so «instant setup» on the website means speed after the contract, not instead of it. The website copyright reads 2024 and some prices may be out of date — verify the price list when ordering. G.729 stands first in the codec list, so ask in writing for the order to be changed.

Source: InterPhone — Troncal SIP Empresarial — 09.09.2026.

RACSA#

A subsidiary of the ICE group and the only carrier in the country with a SUTEL-approved standard contract specifically for a SIP trunk («Contrato Prestación Servicios de Telefonía Fija (SIP Trunk-VoIP)», Acuerdo Consejo SUTEL 008-071-2014, still in force as of September 2026). This is the rare case where the technical terms of a trunk can be read in an official document rather than in marketing copy. The contract form records the number of channels, the monthly fee, the installation charge and the customer's fixed IP.

The authentication model is written out in clause 9 of the contract: the customer's SIP Trunk virtual circuit is validated on the RACSA network by the customer's fixed IP stated in the contract and by the login and password that RACSA provides. Both schemes work for us — the only thing that matters is that the public static address of our dedicated PBX is written into the contract.

What to enter in the admin panel:

What to set up on the provider's side: write the public static IP of the PBX into the contract → agree the number of channels → enable the restriction on international destinations right away (a separate request under clause 7 of the contract) → ask for G.711 and clarify the number format in the call.

Pitfalls ⚠️ The contract relieves the carrier of responsibility for calls originated from your address: the entire loss from a hijacked trunk falls on the venue. That is why the international-destination limit should be enabled immediately, not «later». Second: part of the RACSA numbering has already been ported to ICE, Liberty and Claro, so check with the commercial department how actively the carrier still sells telephony; the contract itself remains in force.

Source: SUTEL — the SIP Trunk-VoIP contract record · the RACSA contract text (PDF) — 09.09.2026.

Carriers that sell a trunk by contract only#

The three largest carriers in the country — ICE/kölbi, Claro and Liberty — do sell business trunks, but they deliver them over their own access link rather than over the public internet. For a cloud PBX that is a refusal by design, not a question of settings. The first and main question for any of their managers is «¿el troncal SIP se entrega hacia una IP pública fija de nuestra central en la nube?». An answer of «solo sobre nuestra red» means the product does not suit us. Ask the remaining carriers below the same question plus the standard set.

International providers with Costa Rican numbers#

Telnyx and Twilio already have cards in the catalogue when adding a provider — the server address and the mode are filled in for you. For a company without a local legal entity this is the fastest route, but the paperwork requirements differ and for Costa Rica they are stricter than average.

• DIDWW — local numbers are available, and this is not a resale: the provider has its own Costa Rican legal entity with the 4900-XXXX numbering block in the SUTEL register. A two-way trunk is part of the service.
• Telnyx — Costa Rican numbers are sold to businesses: a commercial register extract no older than three months is required, the company address may be in any country, and private use of the number is prohibited.
• Twilio — for a local number the address must be inside Costa Rica (for a company, the cédula jurídica and a Literal de Persona Jurídica extract; for an individual, an ID document and proof of address). For a toll-free 800 number the address may be anywhere in the world, but only for a legal entity and with a letter of authorisation. The numbers may not be used for calling cards or callback services.
• DIDLogic — Costa Rican numbers are listed in the portal; check the documentation requirements when ordering.
• What an international number cannot do. Calls to 911 do not work through it, and such a number cannot be ported to a local carrier. For a venue that prints its number in the menu and on the sign, that matters more than the price per minute.

Porting a number#

• Portability is a subscriber's right, the regime is run by SUTEL and it covers every authorised carrier. There is no charge for porting the line.
• The receiving carrier initiates the port. The requirements: the applicant must be the account holder, the number must be eligible and the account with the previous carrier must have no overdue balance. The exact length of the porting window is set by the SUTEL regulation — check it with the receiving carrier.
• Porting is a mass phenomenon here: the numbering register has a separate line for 200,000 numbers ported from RACSA to ICE, Liberty and Claro. This is a working procedure, not an exotic one.
• The account holder must match. If the number is registered to the owner as an individual but has to be ported to a company, the holder is changed at the previous carrier first and only then is the porting request filed.
• Leaving ICE means changing the internet too. With the incumbent the trunk comes bundled with the access link, so switching carriers affects both services at once.
• ⚠️ Changing the public address of the PBX breaks a trunk with IP authentication. If the carrier works from an allow-list, give it the new address before the dedicated machine is recreated, not after.

Rules and paperwork#

If it does not work#

1. The carrier agreed but no calls arrive at all. Almost always this is the link: with ICE the trunk arrives inside the carrier's private network, and with Claro and Liberty most likely the same. Confirm whether the trunk is delivered over the public internet to our static address.
2. The call connects but there is silence one way or both. Codecs: CallMyWay puts G.729 first in its configurations and InterPhone lists it first as well. The PBX speaks G.711 and G.722 — demand G.711 A/µ first, in writing.
3. «Not registered with the provider». Check which mode you were sold: carrier trunks in the region more often use address-based authentication — then the REGISTER checkbox has to be cleared and your static IP handed over for the allow-list. The path to the server is checked with the «Test connection» button.
4. An inbound call arrived but matched no line. No Costa Rican carrier publishes the number format used in the call: look at what actually arrived in the trunk diagnostics and bring the line number to the same shape.
5. Two numbers land on one line. Eight-digit numbering versus matching on seven digits: 2255-1234 and 4255-1234 share a tail. Ask for different endings when ordering the second number.
6. It worked and then stopped after the PBX was recreated. With address-based authentication the new public IP has to be given to the carrier in advance.
7. The carrier demands TLS or SRTP. Trunks over TLS are not supported: ask for an ordinary UDP or TCP account, or choose a different provider.

Causes that do not depend on the country are in «If calls do not get through».

Frequently asked questions#

Which provider should we start with if we have no number yet?#

With Ring / sip.cr: it is the only Costa Rican carrier that publicly supports both authentication modes and G.711, sells the trunk by self-service and bills per second. If you want something cheaper or a toll-free 800 number, look at Navégalo; if a predictable channel package matters, take InterPhone. The incumbents (ICE, Claro, Liberty) are worth considering only when their access link is already at the venue, and even then only with the direct question about a public address.

Why do Costa Rican carriers publish no parameters on their websites?#

That is how the local market works: the server address, the port and the mode arrive in the portal or by e-mail after activation. Even Ring, which publishes both its modes and its codecs, hands out the trunk address only inside the customer portal. This is not a gap in the instructions — as of September 2026 no carrier in the country publishes technical documentation for connecting a third-party PBX, which makes the list of questions from the overview especially useful here.

Can an ICE or Claro trunk be brought into a cloud PBX?#

With ICE, no: its trunk arrives in the private addressing of the carrier's network, which is unreachable from the cloud. With Claro and Liberty the answer depends on whether they will deliver the trunk to a public address; neither announces such an option publicly, so ask before signing rather than after.

Why does the call connect with no audio?#

Almost certainly the codec. Some Costa Rican carriers deliver G.729 by default, and our PBX does not speak it. Ask for G.711 A-law and G.711 µ-law to be placed first in the list — this is normally done in the settings of your endpoint on the carrier's side.

How much does a trunk actually cost?#

Add 13 % VAT and two regulated levies — Cruz Roja 1 % and 9-1-1 0.75 % — to any price list. For reference: at Navégalo a trunk with two channels is $5 a month plus $2 for the number, at Ring a channel starts at $4 and a number at $3, at InterPhone a five-channel package is $20, and at TUMM ten channels cost $92.

Can we keep our number when moving to another carrier?#

Yes. Number portability in Costa Rica is a subscriber's right, the regime is run by SUTEL and there is no charge for porting the line. The request is filed by the receiving carrier; you will need the applicant to be the account holder and the previous carrier's account to be free of arrears.

Sources#

All links checked on 09.09.2026.

Regulator, numbering and contracts

• SUTEL — Registro de Numeración of 23 July 2026 (PDF): https://www.sutel.go.cr/sites/default/files/registro-numeracion-23-7-2026.pdf
• SUTEL — record of the «Contrato Prestación Servicios de Telefonía Fija (SIP Trunk-VoIP)» contract: https://www.sutel.go.cr/pagina/contrato-prestacion-servicios-de-telefonia-fija-sip-trunk-voip
• RACSA — the text of the fixed telephony service contract (PDF): https://www.sutel.go.cr/sites/default/files/contratosadhesion/racsa._contrato_de_prestacion_de_servicios_de_telefonia_fija._hoc-2143-2014.pdf
• SUTEL — numbering plan section: https://www.sutel.go.cr/sutel/documentos-plan-numeracion

Providers

• sip.cr — Elastic SIP Trunks: https://sip.cr/ · Ring — Cumplimiento y regulación: https://ring.cr/es/regulacion/ · Ring — Portabilidad numérica: https://ring.cr/es/portabilidad/
• CallMyWay — Llamadas Telefónicas IP SIP por Internet: https://www.callmyway.com/Welcome/DetailsVoip
• Navégalo — Business VoIP & Cloud PBX: https://navegalo.com/solutions/voip/
• InterPhone — Troncal SIP Empresarial: https://interphone.cr/
• kölbi (ICE) — voz IP empresarial: https://www.kolbi.cr/wps/portal/kolbi_dev/negocios/kolbi-empresas/comunicacion/sip-trunk-empresarial
• Claro Costa Rica — Telefonía empresarial: https://www.claro.cr/empresas/servicios-claro/conectividad/telefonia-empresarial/ · Liberty Costa Rica — Telefonía fija corporativa: https://libertycr.com/empresas/servicios-fijos/telefonia-fija/telefonia-fija-corporativa
• TUMM — Telefonía IP: https://tumm.co.cr/telefonia-ip · MiHost — SIP Trunk Costa Rica: https://mihost.com/sip-trunk-costa-rica/ · R&H Telecom: https://rhitcr.com/nuevo/
• Consulting Cloud — configurations of Costa Rican providers (ICE, CallMyWay, R&H): https://consultingcloud.tech/configuracion-de-proveedores-sip-trunk-en-costa-rica/

International providers

• Twilio — Costa Rica: Regulatory Guidelines: https://www.twilio.com/en-us/guidelines/cr/regulatory
• Telnyx — Costa Rica DID requirements: https://support.telnyx.com/en/articles/8487192-costa-rica-did-requirements
• DIDWW — Costa Rican virtual numbers: https://www.didww.com/phone-numbers/all-phone-numbers/Costa_Rica/National · DIDLogic — Costa Rican numbers: https://didlogic.com/virtual-phone-numbers/costa-rica/

Related pages#

• Connecting a provider's number to the PBX — the common steps, trunk modes, network and the connectivity test.
• Setting up SIP phones — how to connect desk phones and DECT handsets to extensions.