Texas area code map
Sheet TX-15 · 29 area codes · 4 originals from 1947: 214, 512, 713, 915
Texas started with four area codes in 1947 and now uses 29. Eleven of them are overlays — a second, third or fourth code laid over the same ground rather than a new boundary — which is why Dallas and Houston each answer to four codes and why ten-digit dialing is normal across most of the state.
Statewide view. Area code boundaries follow exchange boundaries rather than county lines; the table gives the cities inside each code.
Every Texas area code
| Code | Overlay with | Area | Cities covered |
|---|---|---|---|
| 210 | 726 | San Antonio | San Antonio and inner Bexar County: Alamo Heights, Castle Hills, Leon Valley, Converse |
| 726 | 210 | San Antonio | Overlay covering exactly the same exchanges as 210 |
| 214 | 469, 972, 945 | Dallas | Dallas, Highland Park, University Park, Irving, Garland, Mesquite, Grand Prairie |
| 469 | 214, 972, 945 | Dallas | Overlay of the whole 214/972 area, including Plano, Frisco and McKinney |
| 972 | 214, 469, 945 | Dallas suburbs | Suburban Dallas County and parts of Collin, Denton, Rockwall, Kaufman and Ellis counties |
| 945 | 214, 469, 972 | Dallas | The fourth code over the Dallas area, opened as numbers in the first three ran short |
| 254 | — | Central Texas | Waco, Killeen, Temple, Belton, Copperas Cove, Gatesville, Stephenville, Hamilton, Mexia |
| 713 | 281, 832, 346 | Houston | Houston inside and near the loop; the original 1947 code for the upper coast |
| 281 | 713, 832, 346 | Houston suburbs | Pasadena, Sugar Land, Katy, Spring, Humble, Baytown, Pearland, The Woodlands |
| 832 | 713, 281, 346 | Houston | Overlay covering the whole 713/281 territory |
| 346 | 713, 281, 832 | Houston | The fourth Houston-area code, over the same ground again |
| 325 | — | Big Country and Concho Valley | Abilene, San Angelo, Brownwood, Sweetwater, Snyder, Ballinger, Coleman |
| 361 | — | Coastal Bend | Corpus Christi, Victoria, Kingsville, Alice, Beeville, Rockport, Port Lavaca |
| 409 | — | Golden Triangle and Galveston | Beaumont, Port Arthur, Orange, Galveston, Texas City, Nederland, Vidor, Silsbee |
| 903 | 430 | Northeast Texas | Tyler, Longview, Texarkana, Sherman, Denison, Paris, Marshall, Greenville, Corsicana, Athens |
| 430 | 903 | Northeast Texas | Overlay of the entire 903 area |
| 432 | — | Permian Basin and Trans-Pecos | Midland, Odessa, Big Spring, Alpine, Marfa, Pecos, Fort Stockton, Monahans, Van Horn |
| 512 | 737 | Austin | Austin, Round Rock, Georgetown, San Marcos, Cedar Park, Kyle, Bastrop, Lockhart |
| 737 | 512 | Austin | Overlay covering the same Austin-area exchanges as 512 |
| 806 | — | Panhandle and South Plains | Amarillo, Lubbock, Canyon, Plainview, Pampa, Borger, Dumas, Hereford, Levelland, Dalhart |
| 817 | 682 | Fort Worth | Fort Worth, Arlington, Hurst, Euless, Bedford, Cleburne, Weatherford, Granbury, Mineral Wells |
| 682 | 817 | Fort Worth | Overlay of the whole 817 area, added first among the Texas overlays outside Dallas and Houston |
| 830 | 739 | Hill Country and the southwest border | New Braunfels, Kerrville, Fredericksburg, Seguin, Boerne, Bandera, Uvalde, Del Rio, Eagle Pass |
| 739 | 830 | Hill Country and the southwest border | Overlay of the entire 830 area, the newest code in Texas |
| 915 | — | Far West Texas | El Paso, Fabens, Clint, Fort Hancock, Sierra Blanca, Dell City — El Paso and Hudspeth counties |
| 936 | — | Deep East Texas | Lufkin, Nacogdoches, Conroe, Huntsville, Livingston, Jasper, Woodville, Crockett, Center |
| 940 | — | North Texas | Wichita Falls, Denton, Gainesville, Decatur, Bowie, Graham, Vernon, Burkburnett |
| 956 | — | Rio Grande Valley and Laredo | Laredo, McAllen, Brownsville, Harlingen, Edinburg, Mission, Weslaco, Rio Grande City, Zapata |
| 979 | — | Brazos Valley and the lower coast plain | Bryan, College Station, Lake Jackson, Angleton, Bay City, Wharton, El Campo, Brenham, Columbus |
How the map got this crowded
In 1947 the whole state ran on four codes. 214 took North Texas from the Red River down past Waco, 713 took Houston and the coast, 512 took San Antonio, Austin and the Valley, and 915 took everything west of a line near Abilene. 806 was carved out of 915 in 1957 to serve the Panhandle and South Plains, and that four-then-five arrangement held for more than thirty years.
The splits came in a rush in the 1990s as fax lines, pagers and mobile phones ate through number blocks: 903 out of 214, 210 out of 512, then 254, 361, 830, 915's remainder, 936, 940, 956 and 979. After that, regulators switched tactics. Instead of splitting a region again and forcing half the businesses in it to reprint everything, they began adding overlays.
Overlays and ten-digit dialing
An overlay puts a new code over the identical territory. Nobody's number changes; new numbers simply come from the new code. The cost is that every local call has to be dialed with all ten digits, because the switch can no longer assume the caller's own area code. That is why two phones in the same San Antonio office can be 210 and 726, or two houses on the same Plano street 972 and 945.
Dallas and Houston each run four codes over one metro, among the largest overlay complexes in the country. Fort Worth, San Antonio, Austin, the northeast corner and the Hill Country each run two. Ten-digit dialing has since spread to most of the remaining single-code regions as well, so dialing all ten digits works everywhere in Texas.
An area code says nothing about where a mobile phone is now. Numbers keep their code when they move, so a 512 number may sit in Houston and a 915 number in Dallas.
Codes and the rest of the geography
Area code boundaries follow telephone exchange boundaries, which were drawn around switching offices long before the suburbs reached them. The result rarely matches a county line: 972 spills into five counties, 940 covers Denton County in the metroplex and Wichita County 100 miles northwest, and 830 reaches from New Braunfels to the Rio Grande. For a closer match to postal geography, compare this with the ZIP code map; for the political version, see the counties map.