If a call lights up your screen with a 571 area code, there's a good chance it's coming from one of the most connected corners of the United States: Northern Virginia, just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. For businesses, the 571 prefix signals proximity to the nation's capital, a dense professional market, and a customer base that values a local presence.
This guide breaks down exactly where the 571 area code is located, which cities and counties it covers, the time zone it follows, why it shares territory with another well-known code, and how your business can claim a local 571 number — even if your team works from anywhere in the world.
The 571 area code is located in Northern Virginia, the populous, fast-growing region that sits directly southwest of Washington, D.C. It is one of the most economically active zones in the country, home to federal contractors, technology firms, data centers, consulting practices, and a thriving small-business community.
Rather than serving its own separate territory, 571 acts as an overlay, meaning it shares the exact same geographic footprint as the long-established 703 area code. Both codes blanket the same Northern Virginia communities, so a 571 number and a 703 number can sit on the same street, in the same office building, or even within the same company.
The 571 area code reaches across a wide stretch of Northern Virginia, covering independent cities, suburban hubs, and several counties. Major communities served include:
In total, the area code touches roughly 29 cities and towns. At the county level, 571 covers all of Arlington and Fairfax counties along with portions of Loudoun, Prince William, and Fauquier counties, plus the independent cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Manassas, and Manassas Park.
The 571 area code operates in the Eastern Time Zone (America/New_York). That means:
If you're scheduling calls with customers or colleagues in the 571 region, plan around Eastern Time. This is the same time zone used by Washington, D.C., New York, and the rest of the U.S. East Coast, which makes coordination easy for businesses already operating on the eastern seaboard.
Understanding why 571 exists explains a lot about how phone numbers work in busy regions.
For decades, 703 served as the area code for a huge portion of Virginia. As Northern Virginia's population exploded and the demand for phone lines surged — with cell phones, fax machines, pagers, and second business lines all multiplying through the 1990s — the supply of available 703 numbers ran dangerously low.
Because 571 and 703 share the same territory, 10-digit dialing is mandatory in the region, even for local calls. Two neighbors on the same block might have one a 703 number and the other a 571 number, so the full area code is always required to route a call correctly.
Like every active U.S. area code, 571 numbers can be spoofed by bad actors who fake a local caller ID to seem trustworthy. This isn't a flaw in the 571 code itself — it's a broad problem across the entire phone network.
The most effective defense is caller authentication technology. Reputable communications providers implement STIR/SHAKEN call attestation, which cryptographically verifies that a call genuinely originates from the number it claims. Softtop applies full STIR/SHAKEN attestation on U.S. calls and carrier-grade fraud detection, so legitimate businesses using a 571 number are far less likely to be flagged or blocked, and far more likely to have their calls answered.
A local 571 number helps you:
Softtop carries U.S. local numbers across 800+ area codes, including 571, with instant provisioning and no hardware to install. Each number plugs into the same carrier-grade platform that consolidates voice, SIP trunking, SMS, global numbers, and an AI contact center into one account, one dashboard, and one bill. Plans start from $12.99 per user per month, with a 14-day free trial and no credit card required.
The 571 area code is far more than a string of digits — it's a gateway to one of the most influential business markets in the United States. Layered as an overlay over the historic 703 code in 2000, it serves Northern Virginia's cities and counties from Arlington and Alexandria to Reston, Ashburn, and beyond, all within the Eastern Time Zone and all requiring 10-digit dialing.