206 Area Code: Seattle, the 564 Overlay and Why Bellevue Is Not 206

Where does 206 cover?

Less than most people assume. The numbering administrator's 2023 planning letter describes the area as "Seattle, Shoreline, Lake Forest Park, Mercer, Bainbridge, Vashon Island, the northern portion of Des Moines (which is split between the 206 and 253 NPAs) and other smaller communities", and the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) uses the same list. That is the city of Seattle, the two cities on its northern border, an island in Lake Washington and two islands in Puget Sound.

Everything inside the city limits is 206: Ballard, Fremont, Capitol Hill, Queen Anne, the University District, West Seattle, Georgetown, Rainier Valley, Northgate and Magnolia are neighbourhoods of the city the planning letter names, not separate places with their own codes.

The suburbs most people think of as "Seattle" are not in it. The 1997 split gave the Eastside its own code, 425 — the City of Bellevue's switchboard is a 425 number — and the south end of King County and all of Pierce County went to 253, which is why Tacoma's city hall answers on 253. A business in downtown Seattle and one in Bellevue sit a bridge apart in different area codes.

206 and 564: what changed in June 2025

564 is an overlay, not a new district: a second code assigned to exactly the same streets as 206. The UTC approved it for the Seattle area on 15 June 2023, in docket UT-230108, after NANPA warned that 206 would "run out of numbers by the end of 2025". NANPA's Planning Letter 620 set the schedule: a customer-education period from 10 September 2024, and 564 numbers in service in the 206 region from 10 June 2025.

Two details matter for anyone who holds a 206 number. First, nobody's existing number changes; the UTC's key facts say so in as many words. Second, 564 numbers are not handed out alongside 206 ones at random — the planning letter says 564 prefixes "will not be assigned until all available CO codes in the 206 NPA are assigned". So a 564 number in Seattle means a line connected after the last 206 prefix in some carrier's inventory ran out, which is a slower process than the in-service date suggests.

The overlay also arrived without a new dialing change. Seattle had already been on ten-digit local dialing for eight years, which is unusual: in most places the overlay and the dialing change land together.

How do you dial a 206 number?

Ten digits, always. The UTC ordered mandatory ten-digit local dialing across 206, 253, 360 and 425 in its 2016 decision in docket UT-143787, well ahead of the overlay. Carriers' customer notices give the dates: a permissive period from 28 January 2017, during which seven-digit calls still connected, and mandatory ten-digit dialing from 29 July 2017. Washington has been ten-digit statewide since.

One thing 206 did not go through: the FCC's 2021 order moving 82 area codes to ten-digit dialing for the 988 crisis line. Washington's only code on that list was 509, in the east of the state. Seattle had made the change for its own reasons four years earlier. If a phone system installed before 2017 still has seven-digit shortcuts in its dial plan, those calls fail — a point worth checking on older PBXs and alarm panels.

Clocks move forward at 2 a.m. on the second Sunday in March and back on the first Sunday in November, as RCW 1.20.051 sets out. The same statute carries Washington's 2019 vote for year-round daylight time, which takes effect only if Congress allows it — until then the state changes its clocks like the rest of the Pacific zone.

From the whole state to one city: a history of 206

206 is one of the original area codes, and NANPA's database records it as in service from 1 January 1947. For its first decade it was the only code in Washington; everything since has been subtraction, until 2025 added a code instead of taking territory away.

1. 1947

   One code for Washington

   206 enters service covering the whole state, per NANPA's record.

2. 1957

   509 takes the east

   Eastern Washington gets its own code, in service from 1 January 1957. 206 keeps everything west of the Cascades.

3. 1995

   360 takes the rest of the west

   Western Washington outside the Seattle–Tacoma area moves to 360, in service from 15 January 1995, with 206 as its parent.

4. 1997

   425 and 253 split off

   Both enter service on 27 April 1997: 425 for the Eastside and Snohomish County, 253 for Tacoma and south King County. 206 is now roughly the city of Seattle.

5. 1999–2001

   An overlay planned, then shelved

   564 is assigned to Washington on 20 September 1999. NANPA's planning letters first describe it as an overlay for 360, then for all four western codes, then — in August 2001 — suspend it. The UTC later explained that the plan was postponed because number conservation worked better than expected.

6. 2016

   The UTC orders ten-digit dialing

   In docket UT-143787 the commission requires ten-digit local dialing in 206, 253, 360 and 425, and an all-services 564 overlay starting with 360.

7. 2017

   Ten digits in Seattle; 564 arrives in 360

   Ten-digit dialing becomes mandatory on 29 July. 564 numbers go into service on 28 August — but only in the 360 region, not yet in Seattle.

8. 2023

   Seattle's turn

   NANPA opens docket UT-230108 on 16 February; the UTC approves the 206/564 overlay on 15 June.

9. 2025

   564 reaches 206

   Carriers may order 564 prefixes for the Seattle area from 5 April; the first can be activated on 10 June 2025.

Can you still get a 206 number?

For now, yes — from carriers that still hold 206 prefixes. Whether a new Seattle line comes out as 206 or 564 depends on that carrier's inventory, not on the date. Because 564 prefixes are only issued once 206 ones are gone, 206 numbers keep being assigned until the pool is genuinely empty.

The overlay changed the arithmetic completely. Before it, NANPA's forecasts had Seattle running out in the fourth quarter of 2025. In the October 2025 analysis, the first after 564 went live, the projected exhaust for the combined 206/564 area jumped to the second quarter of 2079, with the footnote "new NPA added". The April 2026 analysis pulls that back to the second quarter of 2073, citing increased demand — still nearly half a century away.

Is there a +206 country code?

No. Country codes beginning with 2 belong to Africa in the ITU's numbering plan; +20 is Egypt, so a number typed as "+206 …" would be read as an Egyptian number starting with 6. Seattle sits inside country code +1, which covers the United States and Canada, so from abroad a 206 number is +1 206 followed by seven digits.

Which area codes border 206?

The UTC's own page notes that 564 was created to overlay 360, 206, 253 and 425 as each runs short, so the Eastside and Tacoma will get it eventually — but NANPA's current record lists both 253 and 425 as not overlaid, and their forecasts give them until the 2040s and 2050s.

Other guides in this series: 202 is Washington, D.C., which shares the name and nothing else; 510 went through the same approve-then-shelve overlay story in California. All of them are listed on the area codes page.

What a 206 number says about a caller

That the number was issued in Seattle — and no more. A 206 mobile stays 206 when its owner moves to Portland, and caller ID can be set to any number at all, which the FCC calls spoofing. Treat "206" on a screen as a Seattle number, not a Seattle caller.

For a business calling out from a 206 number, what the person at the other end sees depends on the route the call takes and how their network scores it, not on the digits. That side of the question is covered in CLI vs NCLI routes and in area codes and call routing.

206 area code FAQ

Sources

1. NANPA — Planning Letter PL-620: 564 and 206 all-services overlay, with the implementation schedule (3 August 2023)
2. NANPA — Area code (NPA) database: in-service dates, parent codes, overlay complexes, dialing plans
3. NANPA — Planning letter index (PL-196, PL-239, PL-298 and PL-492 on the earlier 564 plans)
4. Washington UTC — New 564 area code in the 206 region: key facts (12 May 2025)
5. Washington UTC — New area code coming to the Seattle area (15 June 2023)
6. Washington UTC — 564 area code overlay
7. Washington UTC — Washington state area codes and numbering issues
8. Washington UTC — Docket UT-230108, relief for the 206 NPA
9. Washington UTC — Docket UT-143787, ten-digit dialing and the 564 overlay (2016)
10. MetTel — Customer notice on western Washington ten-digit dialing and the 564 overlay (December 2016)
11. Hood Canal Communications — New western Washington area code and ten-digit dialing (April 2017)
12. NANPA — 2026-1 NPA exhaust analysis (April 2026)
13. NANPA — 2025-2 NPA exhaust analysis (October 2025)
14. FCC — Area codes required to transition to 10-digit dialing for 988
15. RCW 1.20.051 — Daylight saving time in Washington
16. ITU — List of ITU-T Recommendation E.164 assigned country codes
17. FCC — What is a toll-free number and how does it work
18. FCC — Caller ID spoofing
19. City of Bellevue — official site (425 switchboard number)
20. City of Tacoma — official site (253 switchboard number)