San Antonio Area Code (210) to Receive New Overlay

There’s a new area code in town, but the town is big enough for both. Texas’ 210 area code will be overlaid with a new one—726. Since San Antonio will likely exhaust 210 numbers by mid-2018, this new overlay will ensure that the outlaws of Alamo City can still get the numbers they need.

What is Area code overlay?

An area code overlay happens when a new area code—726—is added to the same geographic region of an existing area code—210.

Who’s affected?

Anyone with a 210 area code in the San Antonio or Bexar County areas will be affected.

How will you be affected?

If you have a 210 phone number, there are two things that you need to do:

Change how you dial local phone numbers. The new procedure will require you to dial the area code + telephone number or 1 + area code + telephone number regardless if you’re dialing a 210 or 726 phone number. Start getting used to dialing 10 or 11 digits instead of seven!

Change your automated services. Make sure that any equipment that you have currently programmed to dial 7 digits is updated to reflect the change. This includes life safety systems, medical monitoring devices, PBXs, fax machines, internet dial-up numbers, alarm security systems and gates, speed dialers, call forwarding settings and voicemail services, to name a few.

When will this take effect?

September 23, 2017 — start using the new calling procedure 1 + area code + telephone number.

October 23, 2017 — 726 area code becomes active, and new lines requested in this area may begin being assigned 726 numbers.