Call barring is your go-to solution for blocking unwanted voice or video calls, whether they’re incoming or outgoing. This service is especially valuable when traveling internationally or needing to limit work-related interruptions during personal time.
Best of all, it’s completely free and supported by nearly all smartphones. With simple toggles in your settings, you retain full control: activate it to filter calls instantly or disable it to resume normal connectivity.
Call barring goes further with international blocking, letting you restrict all overseas calls except those from your home country. This surgical control is perfect for avoiding disturbances while traveling abroad or during focused downtime.
Use it strategically: Block international call costs and interruptions while staying reachable for urgent contacts back home. Activate it temporarily for trips or permanently for peace, it adapts to your boundaries.
Let’s find out more about this feature so that we can make the most of this amazing feature!
Table of Contents
Different Types of Call Barring
The different types of calling barring includes:
Incoming Call Barring
This settings prevents any calls from coming through your phone. It’s useful if you’re in an important meeting, on vacations, or just want some peace of mind. User applying such settings don’t want to be bugged via their cellphones.
Outgoing Call Barring
By applying outgoing call barring, you will restricts outgoing calls from your phone. This means you wont be able to dial any number and will only receive calls. It’s useful if you want to prevent making calls while travelling abroad or want to control or put stop to your outgoing calls.
International Call Barring Specific Number Call Barring
This settings strictly restricts your phone from making any international calls. It’s particularly helpful is you want to avoid accidental charges for international calls or are in an area where international calling rates are extremely high.
Some operating systems allow you to block certain numbers from calling or being called. This can be useful for avoiding spam calls or for parental control purposed, ensuring that specific number are unreachable.
Benefits of Call Barring
The call barring feature offers immense benefits as it manages your time and budget. You can choose the calls you make and receive on your smartphone and manage your budget! Here are some benefits of this feature.
Control the Call You Make and Receive
This feature provides you with the power to control your incoming and outgoing calls. It allows you to restrict unwanted calls and international calls. Through this feature, you can block nuisance calls, prank calls, and unknown numbers to prevent scammers and fraud.
Save Additional Charges
When making a call on premium-rate numbers, you may have to bear additional charges that may be huge. Incoming and outgoing calls to internal numbers may also put a burden on your pocket. By opting for call barring service, you can manage these additional charges and choose to receive and make calls only to important numbers.
Access Control
Through call barring, you can control the access of your staff members to certain numbers. For instance, a security guard of a complex can use call barring to send and receive calls only from the residents and emergency services. If you are running an enterprise, you can limit access to your staff to specific numbers or colleagues from another department.
Security and Risk Management
To control malicious activities in your organization or manage hackers, the call barring feature plays a great role. This will also give you the power to control misuse of company phones for personal use. In case of an emergency, the calls can be easily connected to the authorities concerned without any delays.
This feature is great for security companies and control rooms, mobile users, and inbound service centers can make the best use of this feature.
How to Activate Call Barring?
You can activate this service on your smartphone and can choose from various options, like all incoming calls, all outgoing calls, all international calls, all incoming calls on roaming, etc. When call barring service is enabled on your Android or iPhone, anyone who tries to call you will hear a ‘dead line’ tone or a recorded message saying that the caller cannot receive incoming calls.
Activate on an Android Phone
Follow these simple steps to activate this feature on your Android phone.
- Go to the ‘Settings’ app on your phone.
- Tap on ‘Supplementary Services’.
- Click on ‘Call Barring’ and select either ‘Voice Calls’ or ‘Video Calls’ depending on your requirements.
- As per your preference, you can choose from incoming, outgoing, and international calls except home, and international calls.
- Now tap in your call barring code- 0000. As this is a default code, you can contact your service provider.
The call barring settings are associated with the SIM and in case you change your SIM and switch to another service provider, the setting will not be activated.
Activate on an iPhone
To activate incoming call barring, go to the phone dialer, call **35*CODE#. Your ‘CODE’ is the SIM card passcode, which by default is 0000. Therefore, call **35*0000#.
You can also check your call barring status. For this, open your phone dialer and call on *#35#. This will provide you with the status of whether call barring service is enabled.
Tips to Remember
- All network providers don’t necessarily support call barring.
- Make sure that call barring doesn’t restrict messages on apps like WhatsApp, telegram, Messenger, etc.
- Find out if the feature bar voice calls through apps like WhatsApp or Skype.
- When call barring is on, some callers may hear a ‘dead line’, while others may hear a recorded message or a ring tone.
- When using an iPhone, you can also use the option ‘Silence Unknown Callers’. Through this option, you can divert unknown numbers to voice mail. You can do this using ‘Phone’ option in the ‘Settings’.
- If you have an Android phone, you can also restrict calls from unknown numbers. Go to ‘Settings’ and block unknown numbers.
How to Deactivate Call Barring?
If you want to deactivate the this feature on your smartphones, follow these steps-
Deactivate on Samsung
- Choose the three dots sign in the Samsung phone app.
- Now go to the ‘Settings’ and choose ‘Supplementary Services’.
- Tap on the ‘Call Barring’ option. Now, go to ‘Voice calls’ and turn it off.
Deactivate on iPhone
- Go to the ‘Settings’ on your iPhone.
- Scroll down and choose ‘Phone’.
- Go to ‘Call Blocking and Identification’.
- You can disable the switch here.
You can restrict incoming and outgoing calls using GSM codes. These codes may be different for every service provider.
Wrapping Up
Call barring provides precise control over unwanted communications, allowing you to restrict incoming/outgoing calls and texts from specific numbers.
Available on both Android and iOS devices, it offers multiple restriction modes: Block all incoming calls (ideal for screening unknown numbers), prevent accidental outgoing calls, restrict international communications entirely, or permit only calls from your home country while blocking others internationally. This surgical approach minimizes distractions during focused work or travel.
Beyond personal use, call barring delivers significant business value. Control rooms, service centers, and mobile teams leverage it to manage call flow, avoid excess charges, enforce security controls, and regulate team accessibility. It transforms your device into a purpose-built communication tool.
To activate on Android: Navigate to Settings > Supplementary Services > Call Barring. Select voice/video call restrictions and enter code 0000 (default). If unsuccessful, contact your carrier for a custom code. Note: Carrier support varies—some providers may not offer this feature. Importantly, call barring only affects cellular network calls; VoIP services like WhatsApp or Skype remain unrestricted.
When active, callers may encounter dead air, perpetual ringing, or carrier messages—responses vary by network. Always verify functionality with your provider before relying on this service.
Call barring can be a great way to filter nuisance and unwanted calls so that you can save time and energy and improve the productivity of your business.
FAQs
Does call barring affect SMS?
By using this feature, you can have control over the incoming calls and messages. So, you can control which numbers can send you calls and messages. If you want to deactivate incoming calls and messages, you can dial #35*<4-digit code># and call. This can disable the call barring of incoming messages.
How do you know if someone has barred your call?
You can get to know whether someone has barred the call by calling them and hearing the ringtone. If there is only one ring or you hear a voicemail after a ring, it is more likely that your number is barred. You can still try to call the number in the following days, if the ringtone is still the same, it means that your number has been barred.
What do people hear when call barring is on?
When the call barring is on, you can hear only a single ring, or the call goes to a voicemail. You can also hear a recorded message; however, everything depends on the network.
