Phone number formats

How Wajub reads a Mobile Money number, country by country, and what it rejects.

Mobile Money is identified by phone number everywhere Wajub touches it: a customer paying in, a payout leaving your balance, a marketplace settling a seller. Get the format wrong and the payment fails before the customer ever sees a prompt, which makes this the most common integration error we see.

Send E.164

Wajub expects the international form: a +, the country dialling code, then the subscriber number. No spaces, no dashes, no parentheses, no leading zero from the national format.

The shape of an accepted number

+[country code][subscriber number]

+237670000000     Cameroon, MTN
+221770000000     Senegal, Orange
+254700000000     Kenya, Safaricom

A number that arrives without its country code is not automatically refused. Wajub parses it with libphonenumber, and when the call carries a country to anchor it on, a channel like cm.mtn is enough, a local number such as 670000000 is read as +237670000000. Without that anchor there is nothing to guess from, and the number comes back as a 422.

Send E.164 anyway

Relying on the fallback means relying on your own channel being right. Normalise on your side, at the point where the customer types the number, and you remove a whole class of failure from every call that follows.

Every country Wajub reaches

Sixteen countries, each with its dialling code and the operators Wajub knows there.

Country	Dialling code	Operators
CameroonCameroon	`+237`	MTN MoMo, Orange Money, Express Union, Yoomee Money
Côte d'IvoireCôte d'Ivoire	`+225`	MTN MoMo, Orange Money, Moov Money, Wave, Green Money
SenegalSenegal	`+221`	Orange Money, Free Money
BeninBenin	`+229`	MTN MoMo, Moov Money, Glo
Burkina FasoBurkina Faso	`+226`	Orange Money, Moov Money
NigeriaNigeria	`+234`	MTN MoMo, Orange Money
GhanaGhana	`+233`	MTN MoMo, Vodafone Cash, Airtel Money, AirtelTigo Money
KenyaKenya	`+254`	M-Pesa, M-Pesa Till, Airtel Till, Equitel, T-Kash
UgandaUganda	`+256`	MTN MoMo, Airtel Money
RwandaRwanda	`+250`	MTN MoMo, Airtel Money
TanzaniaTanzania	`+255`	Airtel Money, Tigo Pesa, Vodafone Cash, HaloPesa
DR CongoDR Congo	`+243`	Airtel Money, Orange Money, Vodacom M-Pesa, Express Union
GabonGabon	`+241`	Airtel Money, Express Union
ChadChad	`+235`	Express Union
Central African Rep.Central African Rep.	`+236`	Express Union
CongoCongo	`+242`	Express Union

How the operator is identified

This is where production and sandbox genuinely differ, and the difference matters.

In production, Wajub asks libphonenumber's carrier database who actually owns the number. That database is maintained by Google and tracks real allocations, so it survives number portability and new ranges without anyone updating a table here. The carrier name it returns is mapped to an operator: MTN, Orange, Airtel, Moov, Wave, Safaricom, Vodacom, Free, Nexttel, Camtel, Yoomee and Expresso are recognised. A carrier outside that list is treated as no supported operator.

In sandbox, no real number exists to look up, so Wajub matches the prefixes below instead. They are synthetic: they exist to make test outcomes deterministic, not to describe how real numbers are allocated.

Do not build a prefix table of your own

The prefixes below are the sandbox's. Copying them into your code means reimplementing operator detection with data that is wrong in production, and stale the day a range is reassigned. Send the number and let Wajub resolve it.

Country and operator	Sandbox prefix	Channel
Cameroon / MTN MoMoCameroon / MTN MoMo	`+23767…`	`cm.mtn`
Cameroon / Orange MoneyCameroon / Orange Money	`+23769…`	`cm.orange`
Cameroon / Express UnionCameroon / Express Union	`+23768…`	`cm.eu`
Cameroon / Yoomee MoneyCameroon / Yoomee Money	`+23766…`	`cm.yoomee`
Côte d'Ivoire / MTN MoMoCôte d'Ivoire / MTN MoMo	`+22505…`	`ci.mtn`
Côte d'Ivoire / Orange MoneyCôte d'Ivoire / Orange Money	`+22507…`	`ci.orange`
Côte d'Ivoire / Moov MoneyCôte d'Ivoire / Moov Money	`+22501…`	`ci.moov`
Côte d'Ivoire / WaveCôte d'Ivoire / Wave	`+22503…`	`ci.wave`
Côte d'Ivoire / Green MoneyCôte d'Ivoire / Green Money	`+22509…`	`ci.green`
Senegal / Orange MoneySenegal / Orange Money	`+22177…`	`sn.orange`
Senegal / Free MoneySenegal / Free Money	`+22176…`	`sn.free`
Benin / MTN MoMoBenin / MTN MoMo	`+22990…`	`bj.mtn`
Benin / Moov MoneyBenin / Moov Money	`+22991…`	`bj.moov`
Benin / GloBenin / Glo	`+22997…`	`bj.glo`
Burkina Faso / Orange MoneyBurkina Faso / Orange Money	`+22670…`	`bf.orange`
Burkina Faso / Moov MoneyBurkina Faso / Moov Money	`+22671…`	`bf.moov`
Nigeria / MTN MoMoNigeria / MTN MoMo	`+2348…`	`ng.mtn`
Nigeria / Orange MoneyNigeria / Orange Money	`+2347…`	`ng.orange`
Ghana / MTN MoMoGhana / MTN MoMo	`+23324…`	`gh.mtn`
Ghana / Vodafone CashGhana / Vodafone Cash	`+23320…`	`gh.vodafone`
Ghana / Airtel MoneyGhana / Airtel Money	`+23326…`	`gh.airtel`
Ghana / AirtelTigo MoneyGhana / AirtelTigo Money	`+23327…`	`gh.airteltigo`
Kenya / M-PesaKenya / M-Pesa	`+25470…`	`ke.mpesa`
Kenya / M-Pesa TillKenya / M-Pesa Till	`+25471…`	`ke.mpesa_till`
Kenya / Airtel TillKenya / Airtel Till	`+25473…`	`ke.airtel_till`
Kenya / EquitelKenya / Equitel	`+25476…`	`ke.equitel`
Kenya / T-KashKenya / T-Kash	`+25477…`	`ke.tkash`
Uganda / MTN MoMoUganda / MTN MoMo	`+25677…`	`ug.mtn`
Uganda / Airtel MoneyUganda / Airtel Money	`+25675…`	`ug.airtel`
Rwanda / MTN MoMoRwanda / MTN MoMo	`+25078…`	`rw.mtn`
Rwanda / Airtel MoneyRwanda / Airtel Money	`+25073…`	`rw.airtel`
Tanzania / Airtel MoneyTanzania / Airtel Money	`+25567…`	`tz.airtel`
Tanzania / Tigo PesaTanzania / Tigo Pesa	`+25565…`	`tz.tigo`
Tanzania / Vodafone CashTanzania / Vodafone Cash	`+25574…`	`tz.vodafone`
Tanzania / HaloPesaTanzania / HaloPesa	`+25562…`	`tz.halopesa`
DR Congo / Airtel MoneyDR Congo / Airtel Money	`+24399…`	`cd.airtel`
DR Congo / Orange MoneyDR Congo / Orange Money	`+24389…`	`cd.orange`
DR Congo / Vodacom M-PesaDR Congo / Vodacom M-Pesa	`+24381…`	`cd.vodacom`
DR Congo / Express UnionDR Congo / Express Union	`+24382…`	`cd.eu`
Gabon / Airtel MoneyGabon / Airtel Money	`+2410…`	`ga.airtel`
Gabon / Express UnionGabon / Express Union	`+2411…`	`ga.eu`
Chad / Express UnionChad / Express Union	`+23566…`	`td.eu`
Central African Rep. / Express UnionCentral African Rep. / Express Union	`+23670…`	`cf.eu`
Congo / Express UnionCongo / Express Union	`+24205…`	`cg.eu`

Letting Wajub pick the channel

Send a phone number with no channel and Wajub resolves the operator itself, then routes to the best available provider for it. This is the normal case, and the one to prefer.

No channel, resolved from the number

{

"amount": 5000,

"currency": "XAF",

"customer": {

"phone": "+237670000000"

}

Name a channel only when you want to force one operator, on the charge call of a Direct API integration. If the number and the channel disagree, the call is refused rather than silently rerouted.

What comes back when it is wrong

Response	Cause	Fix
`422` on `phone`	No `+`, no country code, and nothing to anchor the number on	Normalise to E.164 before you send
`422` on `channel`	The channel names an operator that does not serve that country	Check the country's operators above
`422`, number and channel disagree	The number belongs to another operator than the one you named	Drop `channel` and let Wajub resolve it
`failed` with `invalid_phone`	The number parsed but no carrier owns it	Ask the customer to confirm their number

The first three are refusals at creation, so nothing is charged and nothing appears in your Dashboard. The last one is a real payment that reached an operator and came back, and it shows up in the failure reasons catalogue.

Send E.164

Every country Wajub reaches

How the operator is identified

Letting Wajub pick the channel

What comes back when it is wrong

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