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# Phone Calling

## Overview

Free Vapi phone numbers are only available for US national use. International numbers are not free, and you can only create up to 10 free numbers per account.

You can create and configure phone numbers with Vapi to place and receive calls. Vapi provides free phone numbers for national (US) use only—international numbers are not free. For international or custom use, you can import your own numbers from Twilio.

## Setting up a phone number

You can set up a phone number to place and receive calls in two ways:

* **Create a free US phone number:**
  * Use the Vapi dashboard or the [`/phone-numbers`](/api-reference/phone-numbers/create) endpoint.
  * Free numbers are only available for US national use.

* **Import your own number (for international or custom use):**
  * Use the dashboard or the [`/phone-numbers/import`](/api-reference/phone-numbers/import-twilio-number) endpoint.
  * This uses your Twilio credentials to verify and configure the number with Vapi services.

## Outbound calls

You can place an outbound call from one of your phone numbers using the [`/call`](/api-reference/calls/create-phone-call) endpoint.

* If the system message will be different with every call, specify a temporary assistant in the `assistant` field.
* To reuse an assistant, specify its ID in the `assistantId` field.
* [Read more about outbound calls](/phone-calling/outbound-calls)

## Inbound calls

You can provide an `assistantId` to a phone number, and it will use that assistant for inbound calls.

* To specify the assistant based on the caller's phone number, leave the `assistantId` blank. Vapi will attempt to retrieve the assistant from your server using your [Server URL](/server-url#retrieving-assistants).

## Video tutorial: Importing numbers from Twilio for international calls

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