318 Area Code: North Louisiana's Number for Shreveport, Monroe, and Beyond

Introduction

The 318 area code covers northern Louisiana — Shreveport, Monroe, Alexandria, Natchitoches, and the communities along the Red River corridor stretching to the Arkansas and Texas borders. Shreveport is northern Louisiana's largest city and an important commercial and media hub, home to a significant casino-gaming industry, a major healthcare sector, and Barksdale Air Force Base. The Red River Energy corridor produces oil and gas across the Haynesville Shale formation. The code has anchored this region since 1957, and in September 2025 gained a companion overlay code, 457, to keep pace with demand.

Energy sector businesses, healthcare providers, casino and hospitality operators, and military contractors serving northern Louisiana all benefit from a local 318 or 457 number that signals regional presence. The Haynesville Shale's active drilling and production activity, Barksdale AFB's contractor community, and Shreveport's healthcare cluster all respond better to calls from Louisiana numbers than from out-of-state codes. The region's tight-knit business community places high value on recognizable local identity.

• North Louisiana's own code since 1957, now sharing the map with the newer 457 overlay added in September 2025
• Anchored by Shreveport-Bossier City, Monroe, and Alexandria along the Red River corridor
• Ten-digit dialing mandatory across the 318/457 region since August 2025

Where 318 came from

Louisiana's original 1947 area code was 504, covering the entire state. Growth in phone demand led regulators to split off 318 in 1957 to serve the western half of the state, from the Arkansas border down to the Gulf Coast — a footprint that included Shreveport, Monroe, Alexandria, Lafayette, and Lake Charles. In 1999, 318 split again: the newer 337 code took over the southwestern and south-central parishes, leaving 318 with the north Louisiana footprint it holds today.

A new overlay arrives

318 held that single-code status for over two decades, but by the mid-2020s growth across the Ark-La-Tex had thinned the available number blocks. The Louisiana Public Service Commission approved 457 as an overlay for the same region, and lines activated after September 25, 2025 may be assigned the new code instead of 318. Existing 318 numbers don't change — the overlay only affects newly issued lines.

Ten-digit dialing

Permissive 10-digit dialing began February 24, 2025, and became mandatory across the 318/457 region on August 25, 2025, ahead of the overlay's rollout. Keep the full area code on your signage, voicemail, and CRM records. More detail sits on our contact center page.

The markets behind the 318

North Louisiana isn't one economy. The 318 map covers several distinct markets worth understanding. Shreveport-Bossier City anchors the northwest with energy and gaming; Monroe holds the northeast with manufacturing and healthcare; Alexandria sits at the geographic center serving the agricultural and government sectors of central Louisiana.

That geographic spread is the practical challenge of a 318 number: Shreveport and Monroe are roughly a hundred miles apart, and Alexandria sits between the two, so a single office phone system built for one metro doesn't automatically make sense for a business serving the whole footprint. Cloud-based routing that sends Shreveport energy inquiries, Monroe manufacturing calls, and Alexandria government contacts to the right team solves a problem a single physical location in north Louisiana can't.

Shreveport-Bossier City

The metro anchors the Ark-La-Tex region — energy, healthcare, gaming, and a growing aerospace presence. Barksdale Air Force Base drives a significant portion of the area's economy and generates steady business-to-business demand.

Monroe and West Monroe

Northeast Louisiana's commercial center runs on manufacturing, healthcare, and the University of Louisiana Monroe and Louisiana Delta Community College, which feed skilled graduates into the region's employers. CenturyLink — now Lumen Technologies — is still headquartered in Monroe on paper, tracing back to the company's decades based there, though it has shifted most day-to-day operations to Denver in recent years. Glenwood Regional Medical Center and St. Francis Medical Center anchor healthcare as one of the metro's most stable employment sectors. A recognizable 318 line here signals you're embedded in the community, not calling from a distant call center.

Alexandria and the central corridor

Sitting at Louisiana's geographic midpoint, Alexandria is the hub for central Louisiana's healthcare, retail, and government services. The 318 code connects you to a market that values local relationships.

Rural parishes and agricultural communities

Much of the 318 footprint is smaller parishes where local presence matters even more than in the cities. An out-of-state number gets screened; a familiar 318 gets answered.

Natchitoches, in the central corridor, is the oldest permanent European settlement within the boundaries of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase — founded in 1714, four years before New Orleans. Its 33-block historic district, with more than 50 centuries-old buildings, is a National Historic Landmark and served as the filming location for the 1989 film Steel Magnolias, giving this small 318 city an outsized cultural footprint relative to its population.

Ruston, northeast of Shreveport, is home to Louisiana Tech University, founded in 1894 and now enrolling more than 11,000 students. Along with the University of Louisiana Monroe already noted above, it makes higher education a genuine economic anchor across the rural stretches of the 318 footprint, not just in the metro centers. More detail sits on our letsdial page.

The Haynesville Shale and energy economy

The Haynesville Shale formation underlies much of the northwestern Louisiana 318 footprint, making Shreveport-Bossier City one of the most important natural gas production regions in the United States. The formation extends across the state line into East Texas and southwestern Arkansas, but the Louisiana side — centered on the 318 area code — has seen billions in drilling and production investment. Energy companies, pipeline operators, oilfield service firms, and petrochemical processors operate throughout the region.

Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City is the home of the Eighth Air Force and a major B-52 Stratofortress wing, making it one of the most strategically significant military installations in the South. The base employs thousands of active-duty military personnel and civilian contractors, and the surrounding Bossier City economy has developed a dense commercial ecosystem of retail, restaurants, and services catering to the military community. Defense contractors and government services firms maintain significant 318 presences to serve the Barksdale market.

Gaming, healthcare, and the Shreveport economy

Shreveport-Bossier City's riverboat casino industry took off after Louisiana legalized riverboat gambling statewide in 1991. Harrah's opened the market's first Shreveport casino in 1994, with Isle of Capri and Horseshoe following in Bossier City within weeks — making the Ark-La-Tex one of the state's earliest and largest riverboat gaming markets. Today, several major casino and resort properties operate along the Red River in Shreveport and Bossier City, drawing visitors from across the region and generating significant hospitality, entertainment, and service employment. The gaming industry has become one of the largest private employers in the 318 footprint.

Healthcare is a major economic anchor across the 318 region. Willis-Knighton Health System and CHRISTUS Shreveport-Bossier Health System are major hospital networks employing thousands of healthcare professionals in the Shreveport metro. LSU Health Shreveport — the medical school for northern Louisiana — trains physicians and conducts medical research, anchoring an academic medical presence that brings clinical trials, research grants, and specialty care to the region.

That healthcare and gaming base has held up better than the region's older manufacturing sectors, which gives the 318 economy a different rhythm than a lot of comparable-sized Southern metros: casino payroll and hospital shift schedules run around the clock, so a business calling into either sector needs to be reachable well outside a typical 9-to-5 window, and a recognizable 318 or 457 caller ID makes a late or early call less likely to go straight to voicemail.

> [TIP] Note: Selling into north Louisiana from outside the state? letsdial provisions a local 318 or 457 number in under three minutes on a free trial — no credit card, and the number is yours to keep or port out free.

How to get a 318 number that gets answered

1. 1Claim or port the right line — grab an open 318 or 457 number, or port the one already on your listings so you keep its history. Porting in and out is free, both directions.
2. 2Sign your calls and file 10DLC — apply A-level STIR/SHAKEN attestation so your 318 calls clear as verified, and register 10DLC so your texts reach the inbox.
3. 3Route each caller correctly — Shreveport energy calls and Monroe healthcare inquiries shouldn't ring the same desk. A contact center that routes by intent sends each call where it belongs.

318 and its 457 overlay are documented under the North American Numbering Plan, which governs area code assignments across the US, Canada, and the Caribbean. That record is published in full as North American Numbering Plan.

Conclusion

The 318 area code has anchored north Louisiana's Red River corridor since 1957, through a 1999 split that handed the southwest to 337 and, most recently, the 457 overlay that keeps the region's number supply flowing. Barksdale Air Force Base, the Haynesville Shale energy play, and a significant healthcare and casino economy all draw on the same 318/457 map.

letsdial provisions 318 numbers in minutes on a free trial with automatic STIR/SHAKEN attestation. Activate a northern Louisiana number today and reach the energy operators, military contractors, and healthcare organizations that define Shreveport and the Red River corridor.

Frequently Asked Questions