562 Area Code: Long Beach & Southeast LA County

The 562 area code is the phone prefix of Long Beach and the ring of cities across southeast Los Angeles County. It is the code behind one of the busiest seaports in the Western Hemisphere, the aerospace plants of Downey and Long Beach, and dozens of dense residential suburbs from Whittier down to the coast.

If a Long Beach logistics firm, a Downey medical office, or a Cerritos auto dealer picked up a number in the last quarter-century, there is a good chance it starts with 562.

That coastal, industrial identity is exactly why 562 turns up in two very different searches: people setting up a genuinely local Southern California line, and people asking whether a 562 call they just missed is a scam. This guide answers both — the cities and communities 562 serves, how it split off from the 310 code in 1997, why it draws so many spoofed calls, and how to activate a 562 virtual number for a business in minutes.

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The 562 area code serves much of southeastern Los Angeles County, plus a small slice of northern Orange County, in California. It went into service on January 25, 1997, when it was split off from the 310 area code to relieve number exhaustion along the coast and in the southeast county.

The 310 code had itself been carved out of the original Los Angeles 213 code just six years earlier, so 562 sits two generations down from the region's founding prefix. Unlike many California metros, 562 has never been given an overlay — it remains a single geographic code.

Dialing Format and Time Zone

• Dialing format: (562) 555-0139
• International: +1 562-555-0139
• Time zone: Pacific Time (PT) — UTC−8 Standard, UTC−7 Daylight Saving (March–November)
• 10-digit dialing is standard across California

The 562 code covers a band of southeast Los Angeles County anchored by Long Beach on the coast and reaching inland through a string of mid-size cities, plus a few communities just over the line in northern Orange County. It is one of the most densely populated and industrially active parts of Southern California.

Major Cities and Communities

• Long Beach — the anchor city, home to the Port of Long Beach, CSU Long Beach and the Queen Mary
• Whittier — a historic hillside city on the northern edge of the code
• Downey — a onetime aerospace center where the Apollo spacecraft were built
• Cerritos, Lakewood & Bellflower — dense residential and retail suburbs in the county's southeast
• Norwalk, Paramount & Pico Rivera — working industrial and residential cities along the freeways
• Signal Hill & Santa Fe Springs — compact cities with deep oil and manufacturing roots
• Seal Beach & Los Alamitos — the northern Orange County coastal edge of the code

The rest of Los Angeles sits outside 562 — central and downtown LA use 213 and 323, the Westside and South Bay use 310 and 424, and the San Fernando Valley uses 818. The 562 footprint is the county's southeast quadrant and its stretch of coast around Long Beach.

The 562 area code sits entirely within the Pacific Time Zone (PT), the same clock as the rest of California. Pacific Time runs at UTC−8 during Standard Time and shifts to UTC−7 during Daylight Saving Time, from mid-March through early November.

For businesses, a 562 number carries the West Coast schedule that anchors the US technology and entertainment economy. It opens three hours behind the East Coast, overlaps the full working afternoon with the Mountain and Central zones, and aligns neatly with the Pacific Rim trade partners that move goods through the Port of Long Beach.

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Los Angeles County has one of the most layered area-code histories in the country. The 562 code is one branch of a family tree that began with a single prefix for all of Southern California and split repeatedly as demand grew.

• 213 — the original Los Angeles code (1947), now serving downtown and central LA
• 310 — split from 213 in 1991 for the Westside, South Bay and coast; 562's direct parent
• 562 — split from 310 in 1997 for Long Beach and the southeast county
• 323 — split from 213 in 1998 for the areas ringing downtown; overlays central LA
• 424 — a 2006 overlay of the 310 territory on the Westside and South Bay
• 657 / 714 — the Orange County codes bordering 562 to the south and east

Because 562 is a single geographic code without an overlay, callers within it can often still dial seven digits, though 10-digit dialing is the norm across California. Neighboring codes you may encounter include 310 and 424 to the west, 323 to the north, 626 to the northeast, and 714 and 657 across the Orange County line.

If the 562 footprint were its own city, it would rank among the largest in the country. It pairs a world-scale seaport with a deep manufacturing base and dense consumer suburbs — and a 562 number connects a business to all of it.

Trade, Ports and Logistics

The Port of Long Beach is one of the busiest container ports in the United States and, together with the neighboring Port of Los Angeles, forms the largest port complex in the Western Hemisphere. That gateway anchors a vast ecosystem of freight, warehousing, customs, trucking and international-trade firms spread across Long Beach, Carson and the southeast county.

Aerospace, Health and Education

The region has deep aerospace roots — the Apollo command modules were built in Downey, and Long Beach produced aircraft for decades — and that legacy lives on in modern aviation and space startups near Long Beach Airport. Alongside it, California State University, Long Beach, major hospital systems, and a busy tourism sector built on the beaches, the Queen Mary and the Aquarium of the Pacific round out one of the most diversified local economies in the state.

Modern cloud phone providers let a business activate a 562 number in minutes — no Long Beach office, no hardware, and no long-term contract. Search available 562 numbers, complete a short verification, and route the line to any device anywhere in the world. The same works for the neighboring 310 or 323 codes if a preferred 562 combination is already taken.

A 562 number suits anyone who wants to feel local to Long Beach and southeast LA County: logistics and import firms, contractors, real-estate agents, medical and legal practices, and remote teams targeting Long Beach, Downey, Whittier or Cerritos.

MeraTalk provides 562 numbers as part of its cloud telephony platform — lines activate in minutes, route to any device, and pair with voicemail, call recording, auto-attendant and CRM integration from one dashboard. To set up a dedicated business phone number, search available numbers at meratalk.com.

These codes cover different corners of Los Angeles, so the choice is partly about geography and partly about the identity a business wants to project. Each carries its own association across the metro.

• 310 — the Westside and South Bay: Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and the coast, read as premium LA
• 323 — the ring around downtown and central Los Angeles, from Hollywood to the Eastside
• 562 — Long Beach and the southeast county: coastal, industrial and residential Southern California

For a business physically operating in or serving Long Beach, Downey or the southeast county, 562 is the clear signal — it reads as genuinely local there in a way a 310 or 323 number never would. A 562 line matches the community it serves and, because the code has never been overlaid, its numbers are straightforward to recognize as local.

The same "local and familiar" quality that makes 562 attractive to businesses also makes it a favorite disguise for fraud. Caller-ID spoofing lets someone anywhere in the world display a 562 prefix, so a Long Beach resident sees what looks like a neighbor or local business calling. The prefix itself proves nothing — genuine and spoofed calls look identical on screen, and because 562 is common on mobile and cloud lines, scammers know it blends in.

• Fake bank or payment alerts — voicemails or texts about a "suspicious transaction," pushing you to call back or tap a link
• Prize and refund lures — claims you have won something or are owed money, requesting card details to "process" it
• Delivery and customs fees — messages that a package is held at the port or in transit pending a small payment

The reliable defense is to hang up and call back through a number found independently — on a bill, an official site, or a saved contact. No genuine bank, agency or courier demands gift cards or wire transfers over the phone. Deliberately transmitting misleading caller-ID information to defraud is itself prohibited under federal caller ID rules. For more, see federal caller ID rules.

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