Irish (+353) SMS verification for product and QA teams

Why do so many teams need Irish numbers for testing?

Dublin hosts the European headquarters of a long list of software companies, so plenty of EU-facing products are built, supported or operated from Ireland. That makes the country a natural place to check a European sign-up flow, a euro-priced checkout or an English-language onboarding sequence before a wider EU launch.

English and Irish are both official languages, but verification texts almost always arrive in English. If your app offers an Irish-language interface, it is still worth confirming which template the SMS sender actually uses.

One more quirk of the island: customers in Northern Ireland carry UK numbers, not Irish ones. A product serving the whole island should test United Kingdom (+44) routes as well as +353.

What does an Irish mobile number look like in E.164?

Irish numbers use the trunk prefix 0 domestically, and mobile numbers start with 08, so a local number written as 087 123 4567 becomes +353871234567 in international form. The rule for normalising is simple: drop the leading zero, prepend +353, remove spaces and dashes.

Store the E.164 version and keep any user-typed formatting only for display. Write a unit test that feeds in both 087… and +353 87… forms and expects the same stored value; that one test catches most duplicate-account bugs for Irish users.

Which services are available on the Irish route?

Ireland currently offers more than 1,700 services through the OTP Gateway. Popular picks in the live snapshot include WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Google (Gmail & YouTube), Microsoft & Outlook, LinkedIn, Uber, Amazon, eBay, Airbnb, Netflix, Discord, Snapchat, Signal and ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Treat that as today's picture. Availability per service changes through the day, which is why the API returns it live and why scripts should check before ordering.

How do I call the Ireland OTP API from a test suite?

Authenticate against https://otproute.com/api/v1 with a Bearer key from the Developer console (prefix or_live_). Ireland's country id is ie.

A typical run looks like this: look up the service id once from GET /api/v1/services, confirm cost with GET /api/v1/prices?country=ie&service=<id>, then create the order using POST /api/v1/activations with {"service": "<id>", "country": "ie"}. Hand the returned number to your UI test, and pick the code up either by polling GET /api/v1/activations/{id} or by listening for activation.sms_received on a webhook.

For webhooks, verify X-OTPRoute-Signature (an HMAC-SHA256 of "<t>.<raw body>" with your endpoint secret), reject stale timestamps and make the handler idempotent on the activation id. Our CI pipeline guide covers wiring this into nightly jobs; an account allows 5 webhook endpoints and 300 requests per minute.

Can a support or growth teammate do this without the API?

Yes, the dashboard covers the same flow. Choose Ireland and the service in the OTP Gateway, read the live price, confirm, and copy the +353 number into the sign-up form. The code appears beside the order once the sender delivers it. It is a quick way for a growth team to sanity-check a new Irish landing page without asking engineering for a script.

What is the plan when an Irish code is late or missing?

Each activation waits up to 20 minutes. If no SMS arrives in that time, or you cancel early, the full charge is refunded to the wallet automatically, so a failed attempt costs nothing.

Before retrying, check whether the service accepts virtual numbers; some decline them by policy. If it should work, wait a while and try again, or switch to another route for the same service. Avoid hammering the order endpoint; space retries out and keep the activation ids in your logs so you can see patterns. Reducing failed OTP deliveries goes deeper. Always respect each service's terms and the OTP Route Acceptable Use Policy.

Can we keep an Irish number long term, and how is billing handled?

Not on a self-serve basis. Long-term Dedicated Numbers are sold only for the United States and Canada, from $1.95/month, with inbound SMS, outbound SMS and browser calling. Teams that need a lasting Irish line can email [email protected], though local rules decide what is possible and nothing is promised.

Billing is a prepaid USD wallet: pay as you go, no subscription, top-ups by card or USDT/USDC, and a PDF invoice by email for each one. Ask for sandbox mode on a development account to run the integration end to end with simulated numbers. See pricing for how charges appear.

Frequently asked questions

Can I check my app's Irish sign-up flow from outside Ireland?

Yes. Order a +353 number from the OTP Gateway wherever your team sits, and read the code in the dashboard or through the API.

What is the OTP Route country id for Ireland?

It is ie, the value Irish price lookups and activation request bodies expect in the country field.

Do I keep the 0 when saving an Irish mobile number?

No. Drop the trunk prefix and store +353 followed by the remaining digits, so 087… becomes +35387….

Are Northern Ireland numbers covered by the Irish route?

No, Northern Ireland uses UK (+44) numbers. Order those from the United Kingdom route if your product serves both.

What does receiving an Ireland SMS OTP cost?

It starts at $0.20 per code; the precise price depends on the service and is returned live before you buy.

Is there a way to test our Irish integration without spending funds?

Yes. A development account can be moved to sandbox on request, which returns simulated numbers and codes for end-to-end tests.

Does OTP Route work for testing a GDPR-conscious sign-up flow in Ireland?

It lets QA staff verify the Irish phone step without exposing their personal mobiles, which keeps test data separate from employee data. Your own privacy obligations still apply to the app being tested.

Service names are trademarks of their respective owners. OTP Route is not affiliated with them. Use numbers lawfully, follow each service's terms and our Acceptable Use Policy.