978 Area Code: Lowell, Lawrence and Cape Ann

The 978 area code is northeastern and north-central Massachusetts: the Merrimack Valley mill cities of Lowell, Lawrence, and Haverhill, the North Shore from Salem and Peabody out to Gloucester and Newburyport, and the inland towns through Concord, Fitchburg, and Leominster — split from 508 on September 1, 1997, and sharing every rate center with the 351 overlay since May 2, 2001.

978 digits on an unfamiliar call place a number in Massachusetts’s northern tier — Merrimack Valley mills to Cape Ann — but placement is all they offer; spoofing forges this code as easily as any other.

978 at a glance

Quick fact	Answer
In service since	September 1, 1997
Split from	508, which had itself been cut from Boston’s 617 in 1988
Overlay	351, in service May 2, 2001 in every rate center
Territory anchors	Lowell, Lawrence, Haverhill, Salem, Fitchburg
Dialing	Ten digits local, mandatory since April 2, 2001
Exhaust projection	“100+” — more than a century out, per the April 2026 study

No published date exists for when this code runs out of numbers. NANPA’s April 2026 exhaust study prints the 351/978 pool as “100+” — its notation for a forecast more than a century away, beyond the study’s horizon. Yet the same code spent the summer of 1998 under emergency rationing, nine months into its existence. The distance between those two facts is the 978’s particular story.

Everything north of the Framingham line

The 1997 planning letter that created the code drew its border in a single sentence: the old 508 territory would be “split just north of the Framingham, Boylston and Rutland areas,” with Worcester, Framingham, Brockton, the Plymouth area, Cape Cod, and the islands keeping 508 — and every other community transferring to the new code.

That transfer list ran to nearly eighty cities and towns. Lowell, Lawrence, Methuen, and Haverhill anchor the Merrimack Valley; Salem, Peabody, Danvers, and Beverly open the North Shore, which continues through Manchester-by-the-Sea to Gloucester and Rockport on Cape Ann, then up to Ipswich, Newburyport, and Amesbury near the New Hampshire line. Inland sit Concord, Acton, and Sudbury — Boston suburbs in spirit, one-time 617 subscribers in numbering — followed by Fitchburg, Leominster, and Gardner, with Athol and Orange closing the map where 413 territory begins.

Two removes from Boston

Massachusetts ran on two area codes for forty-one years — 413 across the west, 617 across the east — until 508 took the eastern code’s outer crescent in July 1988. Nine years of growth later, the crescent itself was too big. NANPA’s database logs 978 as assigned on June 16, 1997 — the day the numbering administration, then a Bellcore desk, issued Planning Letter PL-NANP-068: NYNEX, the state’s code administrator, had reported “substantial number growth in eastern Massachusetts,” and the Department of Public Utilities had ordered a split.

The cut came at 12:01 a.m. on Monday, September 1, 1997, and it was only half the morning’s news: 781 separated from 617 at the same moment under companion letter PL-NANP-069, taking eastern Massachusetts from two codes to four before breakfast. The new 978 inherited the region’s northern third — ground that had already changed codes once, from 617 to 508, in 1988.

Why did the 978 cutover take eight months?

Because the deadline moved twice. PL-NANP-068 scheduled a permissive period — dialing either code would connect — ending December 1, 1997. That October, Planning Letter PL-NANP-095 recorded the DPU stretching it to January 1, 1998. That December, PL-NANP-104 moved it again, to February 1, 1998, and rebuilt the calendar behind it: a phase-in of mandatory dialing through April 1, a fully mandatory period through May 1, and only then — eight months after the split — the activation of the first prefixes unique to the new code.

Through all of it, a test line answered at 978-725-3228, live from the September cutover until its disconnection the day permissive dialing finally closed. Daily habits barely moved otherwise: a call within the code stayed seven digits, exactly as it had under 508, with ten digits needed only to cross into a neighboring code — and the DPU ordered those cross-code local calls dialable as ten digits or 1 plus ten statewide, out to 413.

Rationed at nine months, overlaid inside four years

Weeks after the last phase ended, the alarm sounded. Planning Letter PL-NANP-122 — June 9, 1998, numbering administration now under Lockheed Martin — declared extraordinary jeopardy across all four eastern Massachusetts codes: demand had “increased beyond normal forecasts,” threatening exhaust before relief could be built. For 978, the prescription was rationing — remaining prefixes doled out under jeopardy procedures until supply ran dry or number pooling took over. The engine was the competitive-carrier boom, each new entrant in a rate center drawing a full 10,000-number block.

Relief took the shape the 1997 round had made inevitable. Forced number changes were the era’s loudest complaint, so in Docket 99-11 the DTE ordered overlay relief for all four codes at once — the moment splitting gave way to stacking, a shift traced in our guide to how area codes and overlays work.

NANPA assigned all four relief codes in May 2000 — 351 on May 3 — and Planning Letter PL-234 of July 11, 2000 announced 351 blanketing 978, with 774, 857, and 339 covering the neighbors, every one in service May 2, 2001. Ten-digit local dialing went permissive on September 15, 2000 and mandatory at 12:01 a.m. on April 2, 2001, and carriers proved their routing against a recorded test line at 351-355-8378 from January 2 to August 2, 2001.

The dialing rules as they stand

NANPA’s current entry for the complex lists one plan: ten digits on local calls, 1 plus ten on toll calls, with carriers free to accept 1 plus ten locally at their discretion. Nothing has amended it since 2001. When Planning Letter PL-556 — January 8, 2021, superseding PL-544 — marched 82 area codes to ten-digit dialing ahead of the 988 crisis line, its state-by-state table had no Massachusetts entries to make; this corner of the map had converted twenty years before the mandate.

A forecast too far out to print

NANPA’s 2026-1 exhaust analysis — April 2026, computed from utilization and forecast filings as of March 1 — carries most area codes to a projected quarter. For 351/978 it prints only “100+,” a notation the report’s legend defines plainly: “Forecasted exhaust is over 100 years in the future; exhaust and change in quarters not provided.” The October 2025 edition had at least ventured a figure, the fourth quarter of 2157; six months of fresh data pushed even that past the horizon.

When the study was revised on July 6, 2026, all four changes sat in Texas, and the database keeps no jeopardy note and no relief docket for the complex. Within the family, the contrast is sharp: 508/774 is projected empty in the fourth quarter of 2045 and Boston’s 617/857 in the third quarter of 2066, while the code rationed in its first year now holds reserves nobody alive will see the bottom of, matched only by the 339/781 pool beside it.

Working the northern tier with local digits

Inside the footprint, a 978 display lands with specific weight — a lender dialing Lowell files, a service crew booking Andover jobs, a wholesaler calling Gloucester’s waterfront all open more doors with hometown digits than with an out-of-state string, and our local presence dialing guide puts numbers to the gap. Because 351 shares every rate center, both codes read equally local from Athol to Cape Ann.

What the three digits cannot certify is the caller. Caller ID spoofing forges 978 as easily as any code, so trust rides on the cryptographic signature underneath the call — applied by the originating carrier, never by the display itself.

SIPNEX applies that signature directly: an FCC-licensed carrier stocking local DID numbers by rate center across the 978 and 351 territory wherever stock stands, delivered over SIP trunking to any PBX, softphone, or dialer floor. Outbound calls carry A-level attestation under SIPNEX’s own STIR/SHAKEN certificate, and toll-free service runs through SIPNEX’s RespOrg registration on the same account.

More on the 978 area code

What part of Massachusetts uses the 978 area code?

The northern tier: Lowell, Lawrence, Methuen, and Haverhill in the Merrimack Valley; Salem, Peabody, Beverly, Gloucester, and Newburyport along the North Shore; Concord, Acton, and Sudbury to the west; and Fitchburg, Leominster, Gardner, and Athol across the north-central stretch. The 1997 split kept Worcester, Framingham, Brockton, and Cape Cod on 508 and moved everything north of that line to 978.

What area code did 978 come from?

978 was cut from 508 on September 1, 1997 — and 508 had itself been cut from Boston’s 617 in 1988, so parts of this territory carried three different codes inside a decade. The same morning 978 went live, 781 split from 617, doubling eastern Massachusetts’s area codes in one stroke.

Why does the 978 area code share its territory with 351?

Because Massachusetts chose an overlay over another split: since May 2, 2001, the 351 code has covered the identical footprint, and new lines draw from either pool. Planning Letter PL-234 launched it alongside 774, 857, and 339 — four overlays, one in-service date — after the DTE’s Docket 99-11 ruled out further forced number changes. A 351 number works, costs, and reads the same as a 978 one in every rate center.

Does the 978 area code still allow seven-digit local calls?

No — seven-digit local dialing ended across eastern Massachusetts at 12:01 a.m. on April 2, 2001, a month before the 351 overlay carried live traffic. Local calls take ten digits, toll calls take 1 plus ten, and carriers may accept 1 plus ten on local calls. The 988-related conversions of 2021 changed nothing here: Planning Letter PL-556’s 82-code list contains no Massachusetts entries.

What does the 100+ exhaust forecast mean for the 978 area code?

It means NANPA projects the combined 978/351 supply to last more than a hundred years — so far out that the April 2026 study prints no quarter at all, where the October 2025 edition had estimated late 2157. With nothing declared and nothing planned against the pool, local DID stock in the region’s rate centers will outlast any plan being made for it.

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From the mills on the Merrimack to the granite coves of Cape Ann, business runs better on digits the neighbors recognize. SIPNEX provisions 978 and 351 numbers under its own FCC carrier authority, routes them over SIP trunks built for real call volume, and signs every outbound leg at A-level attestation. Dial (833) 665-2220, ask the provisioning team, or review current rates.