Whether you're a business owner looking to establish a local presence in Southern California or simply trying to identify a call you just received, understanding the 562 area code is more useful than you might expect. Area code 562 is one of California's most commercially active telephone prefixes, serving a densely populated corridor of Los Angeles County anchored by Long Beach — the state's seventh-largest city — along with dozens of surrounding communities.
From one of the world's busiest seaports to thriving healthcare campuses and retail districts, the 562 region represents a significant economic zone. In this guide, we cover everything you need to know: where the 562 area code is located, which cities it serves, its history, time zone, how to spot scam calls that use it, and how businesses can get a 562 phone number to build a credible local presence in Southern California.
The 562 area code is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) covering a large portion of southeastern Los Angeles County in California. It primarily serves Long Beach — home to one of the country's busiest container ports — along with an extensive network of neighboring cities stretching across the southern tier of the Greater Los Angeles metropolitan area.
This area code is administered by the North American Numbering Plan Administrator (NANPA) and is exclusively assigned to California. It is not a toll-free code; calls to and from 562 numbers are standard local or regional calls depending on your carrier plan.
Businesses operating in or targeting customers within this geographic zone frequently choose a 562 local number to signal credibility and improve customer engagement. Research on call answer rates consistently shows that local numbers are significantly more likely to be picked up than out-of-area or toll-free alternatives — making the 562 prefix a practical marketing asset for companies focused on the Southern California market.
Before the 562 area code existed, the entire region was part of the 310 area code. During the 1990s, Southern California experienced an explosive surge in telephone number demand — driven by fax machines, pagers, early mobile phones, and dial-up internet connections. Area code 310 began exhausting its supply of available numbers faster than regulators could anticipate.
The 562 area code spans a wide section of southeastern Los Angeles County, with some coverage extending into northern Orange County. Primary cities and communities served include:
The 562 area code region carries substantial commercial weight. The Port of Long Beach processes hundreds of billions of dollars in cargo annually, making this corridor a hub for logistics, warehousing, and international trade. Beyond the port, the region hosts a strong concentration of healthcare providers, academic institutions (including California State University, Long Beach), aerospace manufacturers, and retail centers. For businesses in any of these sectors, a local 562 number sends an immediate signal of regional relevance and trustworthiness.
A local phone number in any market can meaningfully impact how customers perceive your business — and the Long Beach area code is no exception.
Consumers are far more likely to answer and trust calls from a recognizable local area code. A 562 number signals that your business is part of the Long Beach and Southern California community — even if your team operates entirely remotely. In markets where competition is high and buyers are cautious, that local signal can be the difference between an answered call and a missed opportunity.
Research consistently shows that outbound calls from local area codes outperform toll-free and out-of-state numbers in pick-up rates. If your sales or support team is reaching out to prospects or customers in the 562 region, dialing from a local prefix puts you on the right side of caller ID.
Getting a 562 virtual phone number requires no physical presence in Long Beach and can be done in minutes. Here's the general process:
With Softtop, you can provision a 562 area code number instantly from an inventory spanning 800+ US area codes, port an existing number at no cost, and have everything running inside a full cloud communications stack — voice, SMS, AI receptionist, and contact center — on day one.