---
title: 'Incoming prefix routes'
summary: "A rule that matches inbound calls by the caller's number prefix and sends them to a specific call flow. Same dialled number can route differently depending on where the caller is calling from."
section: features
tags:
  - crud
  - telephony
  - routing
  - feature-flag
updated: '2026-06-17'
---

> An **incoming prefix route** matches inbound calls by the **caller's** number prefix and sends them to a specific call flow. *Every call from `+352` goes to the Luxembourg-language flow*. *Every call from `+49` goes to the German-language flow*. The rule is keyed by the calling number, not by the number that was dialled.

## Overview

Incoming prefix routes give you per-geography routing without per-DID configuration: on a single dialled number, a Luxembourg caller hears the French flow, a German caller the German flow, and everyone else the default.

> [!IMPORTANT]
> The feature is gated by an upcoming-feature flag at the tenant level (`IncomingPrefixRoutes`). Until enabled, the *Call Routing -> Incoming prefix routes* page returns a 404. Contact your administrator to enable it.

## What it does

Each rule pairs a caller-number **prefix** with the **call flow** to send matching calls to. One rule can also be marked as the **default**, whose call flow handles incoming calls that match no other prefix route.

At call time the telephony platform compares the caller's number against your active rules and sends a matching call to that rule's call flow, falling back to the default route when nothing else matches. The matching itself, including how overlapping prefixes are resolved and what happens when no rule and no default apply, is carried out by the telephony platform and is not configured on this page.

> [!WARNING]
> A matching rule routes the call to its target flow, so that flow should handle every dialled number the prefix can cover. Also, caller ID can be spoofed - do not use prefix routing for security-sensitive logic.

## See also

- [Call flows](call_flows.md) - the routing destinations.
- [Phone numbers](phone_numbers.md) - the dialled-number routing that prefix rules can override.
- [Route outgoing calls](route_outgoing_calls.md) - the outbound counterpart (same shape, opposite direction).

```yaml fields
prefix:
  label: Prefix
  tab: General
  hint: 'The phone number prefix matched against incoming caller IDs. Include + for international format.'
name:
  label: Name
  tab: General
  hint: 'A friendly name to identify this prefix route in the list. You can edit this directly from the list view.'
description:
  label: Description
  tab: General
  hint: 'An optional description explaining the purpose of this prefix route. You can edit this directly from the list view.'
is_default_call_flow:
  label: 'Is default call flow'
  tab: General
  hint: "When turned on, this route's call flow is used as the default for all incoming calls that do not match any other prefix route."
callFlow:
  label: 'Call flow'
  tab: General
  hint: 'The call flow that incoming calls matching this prefix will be routed to.'
language:
  label: Language
  tab: General
  hint: 'The announcement language for calls matching this prefix. Leave empty to inherit; pick a language to play the matching announcement variant.'
```