Get ready for the "924," southern Minnesota. That's the new area code set for launch in 2025 when "507" runs out of numbers.
There's a new area code in southern Minnesota's 507 region
Current phone users will keep their 507, but new customers will get 924 starting in 2025.
April 18, 2023 at 8:54PM
Current users of 507 will keep their code. And the 507's turf — spanning southern Minnesota from Winona to Pipestone — won't change. But new phone customers will be assigned 924.
Last August, the North American Numbering Plan Administrator informed Minnesota utility regulators that the 507 area code is expected to exhaust its numbers in the first quarter of 2025.
The new 924 area code — Minnesota's eighth — was revealed only recently when the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) approved it.
The 507 area code was created in 1954 — the first to join the state's original area codes of 612 and 218.
With the proliferation of fax machines, pagers and now-ubiquitous cellphones, a slew of new area codes came about in Minnesota at the turn of the last century.
The western part of the 612 code became 320 in 1996, encompassing such cities as St. Cloud, Alexandria and Willmar. The 651 code now covering St. Paul and a swath of eastern Minnesota was carved out of 612 in 1998.
Two years later, 612 was subdivided again with the creation of the 952 and 763 codes for the southwest and northwest suburbs and exurbs, respectively. There was a big to-do over who got the new codes — Minneapolis or the suburbs.
No such area code "splits" have been done in the U.S. since 2007, with regulators preferring the "overlay" method: new customers get the new code.
The 218 region — Duluth, the Iron Range, Moorhead and the Brainerd lakes area — is expected to be out of numbers and in need of a new area code in 2026's fourth quarter, according to a recent PUC filing.
St. Paul Regional Water Services is testing water from the reservoir to make sure it is safe.
