562 Area Code: Long Beach Stands Alone

The 562 area code is Long Beach and southeast Los Angeles County — Lakewood, Downey, Norwalk, Whittier, and Pico Rivera among its cities — with a reach across the Orange County line at Los Alamitos and La Habra. Cut from 310 on January 25, 1997, it has never been split, never been overlaid, and never shared its map with a second code — and NANPA’s current projections put a date on how long that can last.

An unforeseen 562 call points, on its face, to Long Beach or the southeast county — Lakewood, Downey, Norwalk — but spoofing can attach the code to a call from anywhere.

562 at a glance

Quick fact	Answer
In service since	January 25, 1997
Split from	310
Overlay	None
Territory anchors	Long Beach, Lakewood, Downey, Norwalk, Whittier
Dialing	1 + ten digits, mandatory since October 24, 2021
Exhaust projection	Q1 2031 (NANPA, April 2026)

Around Los Angeles, that solitude is the exception. Downtown runs three codes deep, the Westside and the San Fernando Valley each carry a pair, and the Inland Empire added its second in 2021. The southeast corner still picks up on the same three digits it received in 1997. What follows is how it got them, why its phones kept dialing seven digits into the 2020s, and what the 2031 forecast means for anyone building on the code today.

Third branch of the 213 family tree

Southeast Los Angeles County spent its first fifty years of dial tone under other codes’ names. It began inside 213, the 1947 original that once covered the southern half of California, and stayed there through the splits that peeled away 714 in 1951, 805 in 1957, and 818 in 1984. The split of November 2, 1991 finally moved the Westside, the South Bay, and the county’s southeast onto 310, a code of their own — for six years.

Then 310 itself needed relief. NANPA’s NPA database records 562 assigned on December 28, 1994 and in service on January 25, 1997, taking Long Beach and its neighbors out of the crowded Westside code. Informational Letter IL 96/01-012 listed which prefixes moved and which stayed — a document NANPA’s records still cite, because the Compton rate center was divided in that split and remains shared between 310/424 and 562 to this day.

Those three digits also broke a pattern. Every California code in service before then — the 1947 originals through 909 in 1992 — carried a 0 or 1 as its middle digit, the shape the original plan reserved for area codes. Once those combinations neared depletion, the plan opened every middle digit to new codes, and 562 became the first of that modern format to go live in California. 760, 626, 650, and 530 followed within the year; the state has drawn from the full grid ever since.

Nine rate centers, two counties

NANPA’s central-office assignment records sort the code’s working prefixes into nine rate centers: Long Beach — by far the largest, with 186 prefixes on the books as of August 2026 — then Alamitos, Norwalk, Downey, Whittier, Compton, Lakewood, La Habra, and Pico Rivera. Together they blanket the harbor city and the residential corridor running northeast toward the Whittier hills.

Two of those names belong to Orange County. Through the Alamitos and La Habra rate centers, 562 dial tone crosses the county line into Los Alamitos, La Habra, and their surroundings — a Los Angeles-born code answering for its neighbor’s northwest edge, while the rest of Orange County dials 657/714 or 949. On the Los Angeles side, the footprint hands off to 310/424 toward the coast and to 626 at the San Gabriel Valley line to the north.

Seven-digit dialing into the 2020s

With no overlay ever stacked on the region, nothing ever forced it onto full-number dialing. A Lakewood storefront could ring its Norwalk supplier with seven digits in 1997 and still do it the same way in 2020 — long after the Westside converted for the 424 overlay in 2006 and north Orange County for 657 in 2008.

What ended the streak was a crisis line. The FCC’s order designating 988 as the national suicide-and-crisis number — FCC 20-100, adopted July 16, 2020, with release following a day later — required ten-digit dialing wherever 988 also worked as an ordinary prefix. NANPA’s Planning Letter PL-556 — January 8, 2021, which replaced PL-544 — counted 82 such codes, nine of them in California: 209, 530, 562, 626, 650, 707, 925, 949, and 951.

The conversion ran on the national schedule: permissive ten-digit dialing from April 24, 2021, mandatory from October 24, 2021, and carrier enforcement finished by July 15, 2022 — one day before 988 began taking calls. Under California’s dialing plan, PL-556 notes, local calls carry the full 1+10 digits. Nobody’s number changed; only the habit did, after a quarter-century.

A 2031 date with no filing behind it

NANPA’s exhaust study of April 2026 — the 2026-1 analysis, drawn from utilization data current to March 1 — has 562 reaching the first quarter of 2031, two quarters later than the previous call, on reduced demand. The July 6, 2026 delta was Texas business only — four codes, none of them here. Across the last six semiannual forecasts the date has never left the 2029–2031 band: close, and steady.

The shelf behind that date is thin but real. NANPA’s available-code file showed 83 assignable prefixes left in 562 in mid-August 2026 — for scale, 626 next door held 52 and the 657/714 pair 94. The difference is procedural: 626’s overlay application has been pending at the CPUC since February 2025 and the 714 complex refiled for its third code in March 2026, while 562 appears nowhere in NANPA’s relief-planning status report. No application, no jeopardy declaration, no rationing.

Precedent says what the eventual fix looks like. California has not split an area code since 951 arrived in 2004; all fifteen codes added since have been overlays, the approach the numbering playbook now defaults to because nobody renumbers. The clock is legible too: 626’s relief file opened in December 2024, three years ahead of its then-projected exhaust, and 562 reaches that same threshold around 2028. A second southeast-county code is on no docket yet — but the arithmetic that produces one is already in print.

Working a 562 number

For teams selling or serving into the southeast county, the code is a measurable asset: local presence dialing works because a Long Beach or Downey prospect answers Long Beach digits at rates an out-of-area display never sees. With no overlay diluting the pool, a 562 display carries an implicit tenure as well — every local number here shows the same three digits the region has used since 1997.

The display is also the easiest part to counterfeit. Caller ID spoofing can pin 562 to a call from anywhere, so the durable half of a local strategy is authentication. SIPNEX puts A-level attestation on every outbound call with its own STIR/SHAKEN certificate — the carrier-side signature a borrowed display cannot produce.

The numbers themselves come from Los Angeles-area DID inventory, provisioned per rate center — Long Beach, Alamitos, Downey, and the rest as stock allows — under SIPNEX’s direct FCC carrier authorization, delivered to any PBX or dialer over SIP trunking, with toll-free service available from the same RespOrg-registered carrier.

Quick answers on the 562

Which communities does the 562 area code serve?

Long Beach and southeast Los Angeles County. NANPA’s assignment records group the code’s prefixes into nine rate centers — Long Beach, Alamitos, Norwalk, Downey, Whittier, Compton, Lakewood, La Habra, and Pico Rivera — with the Alamitos and La Habra rate centers reaching across the line into Orange County communities such as Los Alamitos and La Habra. Compton is a special case: NANPA’s split-rate-center list shows it divided between 310/424 and 562, a leftover of the 1997 split.

Has the 562 area code ever had an overlay?

No — and it has never been split either. Since taking Long Beach and the southeast county from 310 on January 25, 1997, the code has held its footprint alone; NANPA’s database lists no overlay complex for it, and no relief project is on file as of mid-2026. That makes it one of the last solo codes in greater Los Angeles, alongside 626 — whose own overlay application is already pending at the CPUC.

When did the 562 area code stop seven-digit dialing?

October 24, 2021, when mandatory ten-digit dialing took effect under NANPA Planning Letter PL-556 — carriers had until July 15, 2022 to finish enforcement, one day before the 988 crisis line launched. The change came because a 988 prefix was already working inside the code, which placed 562 among 82 area codes nationwide — nine in California — required to give up seven-digit dialing. Local calls now take 1 plus the ten-digit number under California’s dialing plan.

How long until the 562 area code runs out of prefixes?

NANPA’s April 2026 analysis puts exhaust in the first quarter of 2031, and the July 2026 delta left that date unchanged. As of mid-August 2026 the code still had 83 prefixes available for assignment, with no jeopardy status and no rationing. No relief application has been filed — unlike neighboring 626 — but if the projection holds, planning for a second southeast-county code would ordinarily get underway around 2028, three years ahead of the date.

Can a business outside the region use a 562 area code number?

Yes. Numbers anchor to rate centers, not street addresses, and a Long Beach DID delivered over SIP will ring a desk in any state. What matters is inventory — which of the nine 562 rate centers holds stock when you order. SIPNEX keeps local DID numbers in stock across US markets, the 562 region included as availability allows, and connects them to the phone system your team already uses.

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Twenty-nine years in, the 562 is still a one-code town, and a number there still says exactly where it’s from. SIPNEX holds the licenses, stocks the rate centers, and signs the traffic — (833) 665-2220 reaches the carrier desk, pricing is public, and written questions go through the contact form.