862 Area Code – Time Zone, Location, History & Counties

Area code 862 is located in the Eastern time zone and covers northern New Jersey, including Newark, Paterson, Clifton, Passaic, and East Orange. Serving as an overlay for area code 973, it was introduced on December 29, 2001, to relieve number exhaustion in the region.

Where is area code 862?

Area code 862 is located in northern New Jersey and covers Newark, Paterson, Clifton, Passaic, and East Orange. It is an overlay for area code 973 and serves the same area.

What time zone is area code 862?

The 862 area code is located in the Eastern timezone (America/New_York).

History

Creation: Area code 862 was put into service on December 29, 2001 and was the 309th area code in service. It was one of 26 area codes introduced in 2001. It was the 7th area code in the state of New Jersey. New Jersey currently has 10 area codes. It was created to relieve the pressure on the 973 area code as the numbers in 973 were being exhausted.

Middle digit: Until 1953, the middle digit was restricted to either a 0 or a 1 where a zero indicated that the area code covered the entire state while a 1 indicated that the area code served only a portion of a state. When the 862 area code was created in 2001, it was the 160th area code without 0 or 1 as the middle digit.

Mnemonics: Prior to 1995, the middle digit of area codes was restricted to a 0 or 1 which do not correspond to a letter on a phone’s dialing pad. So, only area codes created in 1995 or later can have a mnemonic. The mnemonics for area code 862 include TMA, TMB, TMC, TNA, TNB, TNC, TOA, TOB, TOC, UMA, UMB, UMC, UNA, UNB, UNC, UOA, UOB, UOC, VMA, VMB, VMC, VNA, VNB, VNC, VOA, VOB, and VOC. Let us know if one of these mnemonics fits area code 862 so we can feature it.