KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A new area code will be coming soon to parts of Missouri.
The North American Numbering Plan Administrator, or NANPA, informed the Missouri Public Service Commission that a new area code would be needed in February.
The state utility regulator, which gave approval in April to move forward with an overlay play, announced Tuesday that NANPA had assigned a new 235 area code.
It will be overlaid with the current 573 area code, which encompasses most of central Missouri and much of eastern Missouri aside from St. Louis and its suburbs.
The addition of a seventh area code for Missouri is designed to ensure that “all residential and business customers have a sufficient supply of telephone numbers to serve this area of the state,” according to a news release from the Missouri Public Service Commission.
The 235 area code will not replace the 573 area code, but telephone customers in the region may be assigned a phone number with the new area code when requesting new service or an additional line.
“The 573 area code is not going away and customers who have a telephone number with the 573 area code will not lose or have to change their telephone number,” Missouri Public Service Commission Chairman Ryan Silvey said in a statement. “An overlay is a more efficient and less disruptive way to alleviate the exhaustion of available telephone numbers by simply assigning the new area code to new numbers.”
According to NANPA, the 573 area code would have exhausted its supply of telephone numbers in less than three years without the overlay, which effectively assigns the region with two different area codes and will require 10-digit dialing moving forward.
The specific timing of when 10-digit dialing will be required to complete calls has yet to be determined, but telephone customers — residential, business and commercial — are encouraged to identify their phone numbers using 10 digits, the area code and seven-digit telephone number, as soon as possible.
The region for the new overlay area code includes Jefferson City, Columbia, Rolla, Cape Girardeau, Poplar Bluff, Sikeston, Hannibal, Camdenton and Waynesville among other Missouri communities.
