Emergency numbers by country — and how your tag picks one

How the call button picks the number

First, the country of the person holding the phone. The crash is where they're standing, so their number comes first. We read the country from the connection, the way our hosting provider reports it — never from the phone's location, so nothing asks for permission and no other service is asked.

If the connection doesn't say, the button uses your own country: the one your phone number belongs to, which you can change in your account.

If we don't have a number for that country, the button dials 112.

A paused tag, or a code that doesn't exist, still shows the call button. It uses the reader's country, then 112 — never yours, so nothing about you leaks.

What the reader sees on the button

The number itself, large, with a handset beside it. Tapping it opens the phone's dialler with the number filled in; nothing is dialled until the person holding the phone presses call.

An example: a rider with a Mexican phone number goes down in São Paulo. The person who finds them is in Brazil, so the button says 192, Brazil's SAMU, not 911. Your contacts are separate: each has a call button of their own, and their numbers are never shown.

Why 112 is the fallback

112 is the single emergency number across the EU, free from any phone, and the EU says it also works in many countries outside Europe. When we can't tell where the tag was scanned, it's the number most likely to reach someone.

Emergency numbers the tag knows

Where a country has several lines, the tag uses the one that reaches an ambulance, or the single line that reaches every service. These are the same numbers the call button dials; the page reads them from the same table.

A few countries the tag knows are not in this list while we confirm their number with an official source.

Riding somewhere not on the list

Anywhere else, the button shows 112. Before a trip, look up the number where you're going from that country's own official source, and save it in your phone.

If a number here is wrong, tell us: write to us. We'll check it against the official source and fix the page and the button together.