Maine’s iconic 207 area code has been given a new lease on life — at least for another 15 months.
The latest forecast shows the dwindling pool of 207 phone numbers will be exhausted by the first quarter of 2027, while an earlier estimate pegged it during the last quarter of 2025, according to the Maine Public Utilities Commission.
“These additional months are the direct result of multiple actions taken by dedicated Commission staff who have been persistent in efforts to preserve Maine’s single area code,” Chair Philip L. Bartlett said Thursday. “That work includes scrutinizing unnecessary requests for numbering resources.”
Rumors of the 207 area code’s exhaustion have become an annual occurrence in recent years. Its last call was forecasted, in 2015, to occur by early 2019. That was then extended to 2024, and again to 2025, and now 2027.
In 2021, the prospect of splitting Maine into two area codes prompted the state’s congressional delegation to call on the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to work with state regulators to save the 207, calling it a “cultural touchstone” and its preservation a “matter of efficiency.”
The public utilities commission has investigated numbering practices of carriers like Verizon and T-Mobile to see whether they unnecessarily tie up large blocks of unused numbers within the 207 area code.
The commission said Thursday it has successfully worked with carriers to return about 677,000 unused numbers to the 207 pool for future use.
It added that regulators continue to pursue other options to extend the lifespan of Maine’s 207 area code.
