The 361 area code is Corpus Christi, Texas, and the Coastal Bend around it — Kingsville, Alice, Beeville, Robstown, Rockport and Port Aransas — reaching north through Victoria, Port Lavaca and Cuero to Yoakum and Hallettsville. Split from 512 on February 13, 1999, it has never carried an overlay, and every 361 number keeps Central Time.
Refinery contractors, port dispatchers, Victoria clinics: that is the usual population behind a 361 nobody recognizes, and the three digits will not say which of them is calling — only which coast the number was issued on.
361, boiled down
| Point | 361 |
|---|---|
| Dial tone since | 12:01 a.m. Central, February 13, 1999 — assigned twelve days earlier, on February 1 |
| Carved from | 512, along the line between the Austin and Corpus Christi LATAs |
| Companion code | None — no overlay, and NANPA’s books carry no jeopardy entry and no relief docket |
| Where it rings | Corpus Christi, Victoria, Kingsville, Alice, Beeville |
| Digits per local call | Ten, mandatory since October 24, 2021; toll calls take 1 plus ten |
| Prefixes last until | Fourth quarter of 2049 — April 2026’s 4Q2048 figure, revised July 6, 2026 |
NANPA’s file on 361 is thin: one planning letter for the split, two more for a dialing change twenty-two years later. But the first of those letters describes a schedule the administrator itself called accelerated, and it drew the code’s border along a line most area-code maps never use. Both decisions still shape who dials 361 in 2026.
Two LATAs, one line: how the split was drawn
For the coast, 512 was an inheritance from the 1947 map. The code that once ran from the Gulf to the Mexican border — the full sweep is in our 512 guide — had already surrendered San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley to 210 in 1992, leaving Austin plus everything down to the water under one code. By the end of the decade Southwestern Bell had advised NANPA that substantial number growth in 512 required relief.
Planning Letter PL-154, dated February 1, 1999 and issued on the letterhead of Lockheed Martin, the plan administrator of the day, described the remedy the Public Utility Commission of Texas had approved: a LATA split. The 512 territory consisted of two Local Access and Transport Areas — the regional boundaries drawn for the 1984 Bell System breakup — named Austin and Corpus Christi. The Austin LATA kept 512. The entire Corpus Christi LATA became 361.
That one design choice explains the code’s unlikely northern reach. Victoria, Cuero, Yoakum, Shiner, Hallettsville and Flatonia all sit on the 361 prefix listing attached to the letter, because all of them belonged to the Corpus Christi LATA — the routing region, not the bay, decided who moved. The 512 half of the same listing stays inland: Georgetown, Austin, Bastrop, Lockhart, San Marcos, none of it touching salt water.
Twelve days from letter to dial tone
NANPA’s NPA database dates 361’s assignment to February 1, 1999 — the day PL-154 went out — and its in-service date to February 13, 1999, when the split took effect at 12:01 a.m. Central Standard Time. Twelve days separate the paper from the dial tone, and the letter did not pretend otherwise. Southwestern Bell, it recorded, had advised that “the accelerated 512/361 NPA implementation schedule will require special attention by the industry as well as customers throughout the U.S.,” and every domestic and international carrier was asked to have 361 activated in its network before the 13th.
The industry had more warning than the date suggests. The routing test number, 361-742-1000, had been answering with a recorded announcement since January 15, 1999, and the prefix lists attached to the letter were effective from January 5. The copy NANPA keeps on file carries a September 1, 1999 update to those attachments, prepared by its central-office-code administration. Questions about the relief plan itself were routed to Southwestern Bell’s code administrator, with NANPA fielding only questions about the letter — a reminder of how much of 1999 numbering still ran through the incumbent.
Permissive dialing lasted seven months. From the split until 12:01 a.m. Central Daylight Time on Saturday, September 18, 1999, either 512 or 361 completed a call into the new territory; after that, calls dialed with the wrong code went to an intercept recording, and the test number was disconnected. Both cutover dates fell on a Saturday.
The dialing plan PL-154 set for launch was the standard of its era: seven digits for a local call inside 361, 1 plus ten for toll, ten digits for a local call into a neighboring code, 1 plus ten for toll calls out, and 0 plus ten for operator-assisted calls. The seven-digit half of that plan would last until 2021.
How far up the coast does 361 go?
Start at the water. Corpus Christi holds the bulk of the prefixes on PL-154’s listing, with Flour Bluff, Padre Island, Calallen and Clarkwood as separate rate centers around it and Robstown, Agua Dulce and Bishop just inland. Across the bay and along the barrier islands sit Port Aransas, Aransas Pass, Ingleside and Rockport, with Sinton, Taft, Odem and Mathis on the mainland behind them.
Southwest of the city the code covers ranch and brush country: Kingsville, Riviera, Sarita and Armstrong down the coastal side; Alice, Orange Grove, San Diego, Freer and Benavides to the west; Falfurrias, Premont, Encino and Hebbronville farther south; and Bruni and Mirando City at the western edge of the listing.
North and east, the map follows the Corpus Christi LATA rather than the shoreline: Beeville, Skidmore, Pettus, Refugio, Woodsboro, Goliad, George West, Three Rivers and Tilden, then Victoria — second only to Corpus Christi in prefixes on the 1999 listing — with Bloomington, Port Lavaca, Point Comfort, Port O’Connor, Seadrift and Palacios along the water and Cuero, Yorktown, Nordheim, Edna, Ganado, Yoakum, Shiner, Moulton, Hallettsville and Flatonia inland at the top. Every name in these three paragraphs comes from that listing, and NANPA logs the whole code in a single zone, Central.
What 988 changed about dialing in 361
361 launched dialing seven digits locally and kept the habit for twenty-two years. What ended it was not a local shortage but a national one-number decision: on July 16, 2020 the FCC adopted Order FCC 20-100 designating 988 as the three-digit crisis-line number, which cannot coexist with seven-digit dialing anywhere 988 is also a working prefix. NANPA’s Planning Letter PL-556 (January 8, 2021, superseding PL-544) counted 82 such codes. Seven of the 82 were Texan: 361 itself, plus 254, 409, 806, 830, 915 and 940.
The conversion ran on the calendar PL-556 published: permissive ten-digit dialing from April 24, 2021, mandatory from October 24, 2021, carrier cutovers complete by July 15, 2022, and 988 answering from July 16, 2022. NANPA’s database now lists 361 at ten digits for local calls and 1 plus ten for toll, with 1 plus ten accepted locally at each provider’s discretion. The borders did not move; only the dialing did.
The two neighbors show what did not happen here. To the north, 512 and its 737 overlay had converted in 2013 for the overlay and never appeared on PL-556. To the south, 956 in the Rio Grande Valley still dials seven digits by NANPA’s current record — and it is the only Texas code with relief planning under way, a distinction 361 has never held.
Late 2049, and the July revision that added a year
NANPA’s 2026-1 NPA Exhaust Analysis (April 2026), computed on utilization and central-office-code data as of March 1, 2026, projected 361’s prefix supply lasting into the fourth quarter of 2048 — eight quarters beyond the October 2025 study’s 4Q2046, a move the report attributes to reduced historical and projected demand. Then, on July 6, 2026, NANPA issued a revision sheet to that study covering four Texas entries — 210/726, 361, 830 and 979 — and pushed 361 out four more quarters, to the fourth quarter of 2049, noting a decrease in code assignments on data as of June 1, 2026. That is the figure in force today.
The forecast has wandered. The October 2023 study said 1Q2048; three consecutive studies from April 2024 through April 2025 said 2Q2050; October 2025 pulled it in to 4Q2046; April 2026 sent it back out to 4Q2048; the July 2026 revision added one more year, to 4Q2049. A fourteen-quarter spread in three years, ending close to where it began — typical of a mid-sized code where a handful of prefix orders swings the arithmetic.
Ranked by exhaust date, the seven Texas codes PL-556 converted put 361 in a tie for third: 254 and 806 carry the near dates, 1Q2032 and 2Q2032; 940 shares 361’s exact quarter; 409 runs to 4Q2051; and 915 and 830 both reach into the 2080s, 830 after a forty-quarter leap on the same July sheet.
Nothing operational follows from any of it for the coast. NANPA’s database, file-dated August 30, 2026, shows 361 out of jeopardy with relief planning marked no, and the relief-planning status report of the same date lists twelve area codes in some stage of planning — 956 the only Texan among them. If relief is ever needed, the modern default is an overlay on the same map, the trade-off our guide to how area codes work explains.
A Corpus Christi number on a desk anywhere
The coast answers its own digits. A display reading 361 gets picked up in Kingsville and Victoria at rates a Dallas or out-of-state number will not see, which is the whole premise of local presence dialing — and because one code covers the entire Coastal Bend, a single 361 number reads as hometown from Port Lavaca to Falfurrias. The rest of the state’s codes, and which ones share territory, are mapped in our Texas area code directory.
The digits verify nobody, though. Caller ID spoofing can carry 361 on a call that never touched Texas, so the difference between a real local presence and a rented costume is decided at the carrier holding the number, where the call is signed.
SIPNEX is that carrier under its own FCC license — direct authorization, not resale. We provision Texas DID numbers by rate center, Corpus Christi and Victoria exchanges included as inventory allows, and hand them to any PBX or dialer over SIP trunking built for outbound volume. Every call goes out signed at A-level attestation under SIPNEX’s own STIR/SHAKEN certificate, and toll-free coverage runs on our own RespOrg registration when a campaign wants both. Teams putting coastal numbers on every seat can add extensions from $6.99/mo.
The 361 questions that come up most
Is Victoria in the 361 area code or a different one?
Victoria is 361, and has been since the split took effect on February 13, 1999. The 1999 relief followed the boundary between the Austin and Corpus Christi LATAs rather than any metro line, and Victoria belonged to the Corpus Christi side — as did Cuero, Yoakum, Port Lavaca, Edna and Hallettsville. On the prefix listing attached to Planning Letter PL-154, Victoria carries more central-office codes than any rate center except Corpus Christi itself.
Why did the 361 area code go live only twelve days after its planning letter?
Because the schedule was accelerated, and NANPA said so in the letter. PL-154 is dated February 1, 1999; NANPA’s database records the assignment that day and the in-service date as February 13, 1999. The letter passed along Southwestern Bell’s warning that the timetable would need special attention from carriers and customers nationwide, and asked every carrier to activate 361 before the 13th. Preparation had begun earlier: the prefix lists were effective January 5 and the 361-742-1000 test number had been live since January 15.
Can you still dial seven digits inside the 361 area code?
No — local calls have required all ten digits since October 24, 2021. NANPA’s Planning Letter PL-556 (January 8, 2021) named 361 among the seven Texas codes converting for the 988 crisis line, alongside 254, 409, 806, 830, 915 and 940, with permissive ten-digit dialing from April 24, 2021. Toll calls take 1 plus ten digits, and NANPA notes that carriers may accept 1 plus ten on local calls at their discretion. The code had dialed seven digits from its first day in 1999 until that change.
When is the 361 area code projected to run out of prefixes?
The fourth quarter of 2049, on NANPA’s current figure. The April 2026 NPA Exhaust Analysis put it at 4Q2048; NANPA’s July 6, 2026 revision to that study moved 361 four quarters later, citing a decrease in code assignments, and touched only three other Texas entries — 210/726, 830 and 979. In NANPA’s August 2026 database the jeopardy column reads no and so does relief planning, so 361 numbers remain freely assignable.
Can a company outside Texas hold a 361 area code number?
Yes. Numbers are tied to rate centers and carriers, not office addresses, so a firm in any state can order a Corpus Christi, Victoria or Kingsville number and route it anywhere over SIP. SIPNEX issues Texas DID numbers one exchange at a time under its own FCC carrier authorization and delivers them into whatever phone system already answers — the number rings and displays exactly like one installed on the coast.
Twelve days to launch, twenty-two years of seven digits, and a runway that now runs past 2049 — that is the 361 file. The SIPNEX side of it is shorter: Coastal Bend rate-center numbers under a direct FCC license, dialer-grade SIP to carry them, an A-level signature on every outbound leg. Rates are published; the contact page reaches operations in writing; (833) 665-2220 gets a live voice.
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