How long can an Arabic SMS be?

One Arabic SMS can hold 70 characters, including spaces. If the message is longer, it is sent in parts of 67 characters each, and every part is counted as a separate SMS. An English-only message, by comparison, fits 160 characters in one SMS and 153 per part after that.

This is why a short Arabic offer can show up in your SMS platform as two or three messages. The rest of this guide explains where the limits come from, what quietly pushes a message over them, and how to write campaigns that fit in one part.

How many characters fit in one SMS?

The limit depends on the characters in the message, not on the language you think you are writing in. The platform looks at every character and picks the encoding that can carry all of them.

• English letters, digits and basic punctuation only: 160 characters in one SMS.
• Any Arabic letter in the message: 70 characters in one SMS.
• A mix of Arabic and English: 70 characters, because the whole message uses the Arabic-capable encoding.
• An English message with one emoji: 70 characters, for the same reason.

Why does Arabic get fewer characters than English?

One SMS carries 140 bytes of text. The standard GSM alphabet, often called GSM-7, uses 7 bits per character, which is how 160 Latin characters fit in those 140 bytes. GSM-7 only contains Latin letters, digits, common punctuation and a few accented letters and symbols.

Arabic letters are not in GSM-7, so the message is sent in UCS-2, an encoding that uses 16 bits for every character. At 2 bytes per character, 140 bytes hold 70 characters. The encoding applies to the whole message, so a single Arabic letter in an otherwise English text turns all of it into UCS-2.

How are long Arabic messages split into parts?

When a message is longer than one SMS, it is sent as several linked parts, and the receiving phone joins them back into one message. Each part gives up a few bytes to a header that tells the phone how to reassemble them. That header is why a part holds 67 Arabic characters instead of 70, and 153 English characters instead of 160.

1. Arabic up to 70 characters: 1 SMS. Up to 134: 2 parts. Up to 201: 3 parts. Up to 268: 4 parts.
2. English up to 160 characters: 1 SMS. Up to 306: 2 parts. Up to 459: 3 parts.
3. A 140-character Arabic message is therefore 3 parts, not 2, because two parts only hold 134.

Each part is counted and billed as one message. A campaign of 3-part messages to a list of customers uses three times the balance of a 1-part campaign to the same list.

What pushes a message into the 70-character limit?

Many teams write an English message, check that it is under 160 characters, and are surprised when it is counted as three parts. Usually one character has switched the encoding. Watch for these:

• Any Arabic letter, even one word such as a greeting.
• Emoji. Many emoji also take the space of two characters in UCS-2.
• Arabic-Indic digits (٠١٢٣) instead of Western digits (0123).
• Curly quotes and apostrophes copied from Word or a design file, instead of straight ones.
• Accented letters that are not in the GSM alphabet, such as á or ê.

There is a smaller trap in English messages too. Some GSM-7 symbols, such as the euro sign, square and curly brackets, the tilde and the backslash, are stored as two characters. They keep the 160 limit but use more of it.

Do spaces, line breaks and diacritics count?

Yes. Every space counts as a character, and so does every line break. In Arabic, each diacritic mark (tashkeel) such as a fatha or shadda is a separate character, so a fully voweled sentence can be much longer than it looks. Business messages rarely need diacritics, so leave them out unless a word would be misread without them.

How to write an Arabic SMS that fits in one part

• Put the offer or the action in the first line. The greeting can go, or shrink to one word.
• Use your registered sender name instead of repeating your brand inside the text. The sender name does not count toward the 70 characters.
• Use a short link rather than the full page address.
• Write prices, dates and codes as Western digits.
• Remove emoji, double spaces and empty lines.
• Paste the final text into your platform's counter before you schedule it, not a draft from another app.
• Send a test to your own phone and read it the way a customer would.

Should you send in Arabic or English?

Write in the language your customers read. For most audiences in Egypt and the Gulf that is Arabic, and a clear Arabic message in two parts will usually do more for you than an English one in a single part that people skim past. The goal is not to avoid Arabic but to plan for its length: decide how many parts the message may use, and edit until it fits.

If you send to a mixed audience, consider two versions sent to separate lists rather than one message that mixes both languages. A mixed message pays the Arabic limit for its English half as well.

Common questions

Does an emoji count as one character?

Not always. An emoji forces the whole message into UCS-2, and many emoji take the space of two characters in it. One emoji can turn a 1-part English message into a 2 or 3-part one.

Does a 2-part message arrive as two separate texts?

On almost all phones, no. The parts are joined and shown as one message. It is still counted as two SMS when you send it.

Does the sender name count toward the character limit?

No. The sender name travels separately from the message text, so it does not use any of the 70 or 160 characters.

How long should an OTP message be?

Keep it to one part. A one-time password message only needs the code, what it is for and how long it is valid. Writing it in English with Western digits gives you the 160-character limit if you need the extra room.

How Masters helps

SMS EG, the Masters bulk SMS platform, sends Arabic and English messages to Vodafone, Orange, Etisalat and WE numbers under your own registered sender name. Its counter shows how many SMS parts each message uses before you send, and delivery reports show which numbers received it. Smart Link shortens campaign links so they fit in a message and counts real clicks on each one. For login and payment codes, SMS OTP sends one-time passwords through one API. If you want a second opinion on a campaign text, the Masters team can help you write it on WhatsApp.