01242 — Cheltenham

About the 01242 dialling code

01242 is the UK area code for Cheltenham and the surrounding Gloucestershire area, listed in Ofcom’s National Telephone Numbering Plan. When a UK landline calls you and the number begins +44 1242 the originating exchange is most likely physically located in or near Cheltenham. Numbers in this code are allocated to UK communications providers in 1,000- or 10,000-number blocks; the table below shows which Range Holder Ofcom assigned each block to.

This is the same data Ofcom publishes every Wednesday in the public UK Numbering Data feed. We re-ingest the snapshot weekly, so the allocations you see here are at most seven days old. Because UK numbers are portable, the current carrier of any specific number on 01242 can differ from the Range Holder shown — see Range Holder vs current provider for the full explanation.

To identify a specific 01242 number, paste it into the lookup form above. You will see the Range Holder, the allocation status, the area-code metadata for Cheltenham, and a live AI internet check summarising any public web reports about that exact number — useful when an unfamiliar 01242 caller turns out to be a legitimate local business, a national contact-centre, or a scam.

The 01242 code uses standard UK landline call charging: from a UK landline or mobile, the call is billed at the rate set by the caller’s own provider, with most consumer tariffs bundling UK-to-UK landline minutes into a monthly inclusive allowance. It is a geographic number under the Ofcom numbering plan, which means the recipient pays nothing to receive the call, and the caller pays a normal landline rate regardless of where in the UK they are dialling from. International callers should drop the leading zero and dial +44 1242 followed by the local number.

01242 numbers can be reached as a UK consumer landline, used by a small business operating from Cheltenham, allocated to a national contact-centre that wants a Cheltenham-presenting CLI, or provisioned to a VoIP service whose subscriber lives anywhere in the UK. Because the same code can fan out to such different real-world callers, the dialling code on its own is rarely enough to identify who is calling. The combination of (a) the Ofcom Range Holder for the specific block, (b) the public web reputation surfaced by the AI internet check, and (c) the call’s context (time of day, whether you were expecting a call, what they ask for) is what actually answers who called me from 01242?

01242 by the numbers

The 01242 dialling code currently has 200 allocated number ranges on file across 48 distinct Ofcom Range Holders. The largest holder by allocated block count is BT with 20 ranges, followed by TalkTalk Communications Limited (8) and Digital Space Group Limited (4). Numbers in this area are predominantly recorded as Allocated (60% of the visible blocks), with Protected accounting for a further 39%. The allocated prefixes on 01242 run from +44 1242 through +44 1242360, which Ofcom carves into 5 distinct block roots in the table below.

Of those visible blocks, 60% are in active Allocated status; the rest are a mix of Designated (earmarked for a specific use but not yet released), Reserved (held back from the general pool), Quarantined (recently freed and not yet eligible for re-issue), and Free (available for re-allocation). The mix matters when you’re trying to identify a caller: a number sitting inside an Allocated 01242 block is in active service with a UK customer, whereas a number claimed to be from a Designated or Reserved block almost certainly isn’t the genuine origin and points instead at a spoofed CLI worth treating with caution.

By number family, the visible 01242 blocks are mostly geographic (01 / 02) (100%) — a useful sanity check, because a geographic code should be dominated by geographic ranges, and any large non-geographic share would be a sign the block boundaries are worth a closer look.

Best practice when a 01242 call comes in

• Cross-reference the digits against the Range Holder column below — a call presenting a 01242 CLI that doesn’t reconcile to one of the UK-licensed providers listed is the first amber flag.
• Treat the prefix as one signal, not the whole story. UK numbers are portable, and any geographic code can be CLI-spoofed through an offshore VoIP gateway, so the 01242 root only narrows the field of likely callers.
• Paste the exact digits into the lookup form above for a live AI internet check — if a 01242 number has been logged on consumer scam-reporting forums, that surfaces alongside the Range Holder record.
• If a 01242 caller pressures you for payment details, account credentials or remote-access permission, hang up. Find the official number on the organisation’s website or a recent statement and ring back yourself rather than trusting the incoming CLI.