686 area code

804 Vanity Phone Numbers — Richmond, Virginia

29 min read

804 is the Richmond-metro dialing code — Richmond city, Henrico, Chesterfield, Hanover, Goochland, and Powhatan. It is distinct from 757 Hampton Roads, 540 west of the Blue Ridge, and 703/571 in Northern Virginia. Inside the metro, where your registered agent sits decides which submarket read applies — Capitol Square, Innsbrook, Short Pump, Chesterfield, Hanover, or Scott's Addition. Pattern decides recall.

Use this five-step decision list to pick a Richmond-metro prefix:

  1. If your office or registered agent sits inside the City of Richmond — Capitol Square, Shockoe, the Fan, Museum District, Carver, Jackson Ward, Manchester, the Boulevard, or Scott's Addition — 804 with a clean pattern reads as resident. The Capitol-corridor lobbying-and-government-affairs tier, the Main Street commercial-bar tier, the VCU Health institutional tier, and the Scott's Addition creator-and-hospitality tier all default 804 inside city limits.
  2. If your office sits in Henrico County — West End / Tuckahoe / Three Chopt, Innsbrook, Short Pump, Glen Allen, Highland Springs, Sandston, or Varina — 804 still reads as the resident metro prefix. Henrico carries the bulk of the metro's insurance, mid-market financial-services, and corporate-administrative footprint. Innsbrook in particular concentrates regional financial-services and insurance operations.
  3. If your office sits in Chesterfield County — Midlothian, Bon Air, Brandermill, Woodlake, Chester, Bermuda, or the Hull Street corridor — 804 reads cleanly. Chesterfield's residential-construction, custom-builder, residential real-estate, and consumer-services footprint is one of the densest in the metro.
  4. If your office sits in Hanover County — Mechanicsville, Ashland (the western Hanover side, distinct from Hanover, Pennsylvania), Atlee, or Old Church — 804 reads as a north-metro resident prefix. Hanover's commercial-and-light-manufacturing tier (the Park, Atlee corridor) and Randolph-Macon College on Henry Street in Ashland anchor the read.
  5. If your office sits in Goochland or Powhatan — Manakin-Sabot, Maidens, Crozier, Powhatan Courthouse, or the western horse-country side of the metro — 804 still applies. The far-western metro carries equestrian, agricultural, custom-residential, and small-firm professional-services registers; the prefix is the same.

Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia and one of the densest concentrations of state regulatory authority, public-policy law practice, and Fortune 500 corporate headquarters in the Southeast. The General Assembly convenes on Capitol Square. The Virginia State Bar, the Virginia State Corporation Commission, the Bureau of Insurance, the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation, the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services (Medicaid), the Department of Taxation, the Department of Health Professions, the Real Estate Board, the Virginia Employment Commission, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond all anchor on or near 804. Altria, Performance Food Group, Markel, Genworth, Owens & Minor, and the Capital One Tower on the Boulevard sit across downtown, the West End, and the Innsbrook corridor. VCU and VCU Health anchor academic medicine on Broad Street and the MCV Campus. The University of Richmond anchors private-academic on Westhampton. Inside that footprint, an 804 with a clean four-digit pattern reads as resident — and locals parse the prefix off counsel letterhead, retainer agreements, broker yard signs, and contractor estimates in milliseconds.

The model behind every line we sell is one-time purchase, not subscription. Background: how the outright-purchase model works. Inventory entry points: Virginia vanity numbers and the outright-purchase landing page. Pattern-led browse: all vanity numbers.

How 804 Ended Up Wrapping the Capital Without an Overlay

Area code 804 was issued in the original 1947 numbering plan and originally covered the entire eastern half of the Commonwealth — Richmond, Hampton Roads, the Eastern Shore, Northern Neck, and the I-64 corridor east of the Blue Ridge. The 1973 split carved off 703 to absorb everything west and north of the central Piedmont, leaving 804 as a Richmond-and-Tidewater code. The 1996 split carved off 757 to handle the Hampton Roads metro and the Eastern Shore, narrowing 804 to its current Richmond-metro and central-Virginia footprint — Richmond city, Henrico, Chesterfield, Hanover, Goochland, Powhatan, and the I-95 corridor running north toward Fredericksburg and south toward Petersburg.

In 2022 the Virginia State Corporation Commission and the North American Numbering Plan Administrator approved 686 as a full-region overlay for 804 to relieve projected exhaustion. Mandatory ten-digit dialing inside the 804 / 686 overlay zone has been the standing rule since the overlay turned up. Every block inside 804 is now also inside 686, and new line assignments increasingly pull from the overlay. That is why an 804 in 2026 reads as the legacy Richmond-metro code while 686 reads as a 2022-or-later install.

Sister metro to the east — Hampton Roads on 757 — is a separate buying decision with a separate page. See 757 vanity phone numbers — Norfolk and Hampton Roads for that geography. The two metros share a state, an interstate, and a Federal Reserve branch operations footprint, but the dialing read is genuinely different inside Virginia and the customer reads of the two prefixes are not interchangeable.

What 804 Reads As Inside the Richmond Metro

804 is the resident Richmond-metro prefix. It carries weight in every industry where Virginia regulatory standing, Virginia state-tax registration, or proximity to the General Assembly actually matters — and inside the capital that list runs longer than in most state metros.

The legal-and-government-affairs register is the densest 804 read in the city. Capitol Square sits at the eastern edge of downtown — the Virginia State Capitol on Bank Street, the General Assembly Building, the Patrick Henry Building, the Old City Hall, the Pocahontas Building (interim Senate session space), and the Eighth Street office cluster all anchor 804. The Virginia State Bar headquarters on Eighth Street, the Supreme Court of Virginia, the Court of Appeals of Virginia, the Office of the Attorney General, the State Corporation Commission's main offices, and the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation sit on or directly adjacent to the corridor. Government-affairs and lobbying counsel — the firms registered with the Virginia Conflict of Interest and Ethics Advisory Council, the lobbying tier walking between the Pocahontas Building and Capitol Square daily during session — anchor 804 across Main Street, Cary Street, and the East Franklin tier. A Richmond-bar attorney filing in Richmond City Circuit Court or Henrico Circuit on a 703 line reads as Northern-Virginia counsel parachuted in for the matter; the same attorney on a 757 line reads as Tidewater counsel; the same attorney on an 804 line reads as resident Richmond practice. The prefix carries a real cost in counterparty perception. Legal vanity phone numbers covers the firm-side selection logic.

The corporate-headquarters register reads heavily 804 across the West End and Henrico. Altria Group at its corporate headquarters at 6601 West Broad Street in Henrico — the Richmond-area Altria campus — runs 804 across its institutional and government-affairs lines. Performance Food Group at its global headquarters in Goochland — one of the largest food-service distributors in the country — reads 804. Markel Group at its Innsbrook campus, Genworth Financial in West End Henrico, Owens & Minor in Mechanicsville (Hanover), CarMax in Goochland, and Brink's in Henrico all anchor 804 on their corporate communications and Virginia-domiciled business lines. The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond on East Byrd Street downtown — the Fifth District head office covering Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, West Virginia, and the District — runs institutional 804. Capital One's Richmond operations at the Capital One Tower at the Boulevard, while the corporate parent headquarters is in McLean (Northern Virginia, 703/571), still anchor a substantial Richmond-side workforce on 804 lines for the Boulevard footprint. Dominion Energy's Richmond corporate headquarters on Tredegar Street and the integrated downtown utility footprint read 804.

The healthcare register reads 804 across the academic-medical and community-hospital tier. VCU Health and the Medical College of Virginia Hospitals on the MCV Campus along East Marshall Street and East Broad — the Massey Cancer Center, the Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU, the Virginia Treatment Center for Children, the VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center — anchor 804 across institutional and clinic lines. Bon Secours Mercy Health's Richmond market (St. Mary's on Monument Avenue, Memorial Regional in Mechanicsville, Richmond Community on the East End, St. Francis in Midlothian) reads 804. HCA Virginia's Richmond market (Henrico Doctors' on Forest Avenue, Chippenham in Chesterfield, Johnston-Willis in Chesterfield, Parham Doctors' on East Parham, Retreat Doctors' in the Fan) reads 804. Children's Hospital of Richmond, Sheltering Arms Institute on Patterson Avenue, Richmond Community Hospital on North 28th Street, and the broader community-hospital tier all anchor 804. Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center on Broad Rock Boulevard reads 804 for veteran patient outreach. Healthcare vanity phone numbers covers the practice-intake logic, and dental vanity phone numbers covers the dental-practice register specifically.

The academic register reads 804 across both VCU on Broad Street downtown and the University of Richmond on Westhampton in the West End. Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College, Virginia Union University on Lombardy, Virginia State University across the line in Petersburg (technically 804 footprint southside), and the broader Richmond-area education tier anchor 804 on institutional and admissions lines.

The hospitality, restaurant, creator, and small-business register reads 804 heavily across the Fan, Carytown on West Cary Street, Scott's Addition (the brewery-and-cidery industrial-revival district between Boulevard and the Diamond), Manchester / South Side, Shockoe Bottom, Church Hill, and the Boulevard. Independent restaurants, breweries, distilleries, coffee operators, salon-and-studio operators, fitness studios, and creator-class small businesses across these neighborhoods anchor the public-facing 804 read. Restaurant vanity phone numbers covers the hospitality-operator register.

What 686 Reads As — and Why You Probably Want a Clean 804 First

686 is the 2022 Richmond-region overlay assigned to relieve 804 exhaustion. It carries no incumbency signal. A 686 number does not say "Capitol Square tenure" or "Innsbrook legacy operator" or "Short Pump established retail." It says "this line was assigned in 2022 or later." For most 804-footprint buyers in 2026, that read is a downside relative to a clean 804 — and the practical move is to pick 804 first and treat 686 as a tiebreaker only when its pattern strength is meaningfully better.

That said, a clean 686 with a strong four-digit ending — a clean repeating tail, a mirror, an ascending sequence, an AABB structure — can be a credible pick for a brand-led operator whose recall plan rests entirely on the pattern itself. Out-of-state customers do not parse 804 versus 686; they hear "Richmond, Virginia" and remember the digits that follow. Inside the metro, the 804 incumbency read still dominates strongly. 686 reads cleaner than a non-local code would, but worse than a clean 804 with a comparable pattern. For most buyers, the order is: clean 804 with a serviceable pattern first, clean 686 with a strong pattern second, every other prefix third.

804 vs 686 vs Out-of-State: A Working Decision Matrix

Use this when picking among the codes available to a Richmond-metro buyer:

  1. Where is your registered agent and primary license filed? Virginia (State Corporation Commission filing, Virginia State Bar, Virginia Bureau of Insurance, Virginia Real Estate Board, Virginia Department of Health Professions, DMAS Medicaid provider): 804 reads correctly. Out-of-state (Maryland, North Carolina, DC, anywhere else): the 804 prefix would read as borrowed local credibility you do not actually carry, and counterparties parse the licensing tell.
  2. Which submarket are you primarily in? Capitol Square, downtown, Shockoe Slip, Shockoe Bottom, Court End, the Fan, Museum District, Carver, Jackson Ward, Manchester, Church Hill, Carytown, the Boulevard, Scott's Addition — 804 default by city of Richmond. West End / Tuckahoe / Three Chopt, Innsbrook, Short Pump, Glen Allen, Highland Springs, Varina, Sandston, the Henrico portion of the metro — 804 default. Midlothian, Bon Air, Brandermill, Woodlake, Chester, Bermuda, the Hull Street corridor in Chesterfield — 804 default. Mechanicsville, Ashland, Atlee, Old Church in Hanover — 804 default. Manakin-Sabot, Maidens, Crozier in Goochland; Powhatan Courthouse in Powhatan — 804 default. Anywhere on the Hampton Roads side — 757, see the Norfolk page. Anywhere in Northern Virginia — 703 / 571, separate read entirely.
  3. Which industry cluster do you anchor in? Capitol-corridor government-affairs and lobbying, Virginia State Bar litigation and commercial practice, the Main Street and Cary Street commercial-bar tier — 804 default. Altria, Performance Food Group, Markel, Genworth, Owens & Minor, CarMax, Brink's, Dominion Energy, the Federal Reserve Richmond, the Capital One Tower workforce on the Boulevard — 804 default. VCU Health and MCV Hospitals, Bon Secours Richmond market, HCA Virginia Richmond market, Children's Hospital of Richmond, Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center — 804 default. The broader Innsbrook insurance, Henrico mid-market financial-services, and Chesterfield residential-construction tier — 804 default.
  4. What is the strongest pattern actually available? If a clean repeating-digit ending or ascending sequence is on a 686 and the matching pattern on 804 is mediocre, weigh whether brand recall through pattern beats prefix incumbency. For most established Richmond-metro operators, 804 with a decent pattern beats 686 with a great pattern. For a brand-new launch with no tenure to defend, 686 with a strong pattern can work.
  5. Is there ambiguity? A multi-state operator with a Maryland or North Carolina registered agent and a Henrico office of convenience, an out-of-state firm opening a Richmond satellite, a creator splitting time between Richmond and DC — pick the prefix matching the registered-agent address and the primary licensing board. The prefix should match where you can actually be served process and where your license is filed.

The 804-as-resident / 686-as-overlay / out-of-state-prefix-as-borrowed-credibility split is the real read inside the Richmond metro. From $200–$250 across the catalog, the cost of choosing wrong is a one-time purchase decision, not a subscription drag — see the outright-purchase landing page for the model.

Industry Reads Across the 804 Footprint

Capitol-Corridor Legal, Government Affairs, and Lobbying

The legal register is the most prefix-sensitive corridor in the city. Virginia State Bar attorneys whose practice is filed in Richmond City Circuit, Henrico Circuit, Chesterfield Circuit, Hanover Circuit, the Supreme Court of Virginia, the Court of Appeals of Virginia, the Eastern District of Virginia federal court (Richmond Division at the Spottswood W. Robinson III and Robert R. Merhige Jr. courthouses), or before any of the dozens of state regulatory boards reading off Capitol Square anchor 804 on counsel letterhead. The lobbying-and-government-affairs tier — the firms registered with the Virginia Conflict of Interest and Ethics Advisory Council, the contract-lobbying counsel walking the Pocahontas Building and Capitol Square during the General Assembly's January-through-March session — anchors 804 across Main Street, East Cary Street, East Franklin, and the Eighth Street tier. The Main Street commercial-litigation, M&A, and securities-and-banking practices, the Capitol Square regulatory-and-administrative-law practices, the personal-injury bar across the Boulevard and Mechanicsville Turnpike, and the family-law and estate-planning bar across Henrico and Chesterfield all key off the Virginia State Bar membership and the 804 prefix. Legal vanity phone numbers covers the firm-side selection logic; personal-injury attorney vanity numbers covers PI specifically; vanity numbers for political campaigns covers the campaign-and-PAC register where Capitol Square overlap is greatest.

Healthcare and Academic Medicine

The MCV Campus on East Broad and East Marshall — VCU Health, the Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU, the Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Virginia Treatment Center for Children, the VCU School of Medicine, the VCU School of Dentistry on West Leigh, the VCU School of Pharmacy on North 12th — anchors academic medicine on 804 across institutional, clinic, faculty-practice, and patient-intake lines. Community hospital coverage runs Bon Secours Richmond market (St. Mary's, Memorial Regional, Richmond Community, St. Francis), HCA Virginia Richmond market (Henrico Doctors', Chippenham, Johnston-Willis, Parham Doctors', Retreat Doctors'), Children's Hospital of Richmond (CHoR), Sheltering Arms Institute, and the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center on Broad Rock for veteran healthcare. HIPAA-compliant call routing matters operationally for any provider — a clean public-facing recall number paired with proper routing infrastructure is a real asset for new patient intake. Healthcare vanity phone numbers covers practice-side selection; dental vanity phone numbers covers the dental-practice register, where the VCU dental-school alumni network in the metro is one of the densest in Virginia.

Insurance, Finance, and Innsbrook Mid-Market

Innsbrook on Cox Road in West End Henrico, the Boulders / Park Central tier, and the broader Henrico mid-market business-park footprint anchor regional insurance, financial-services, and benefits-consulting operators on 804. Markel Group at Innsbrook, Genworth Financial in West End Henrico, the State Corporation Commission Bureau of Insurance regulating from downtown, and the broker-and-agency tier across Glen Allen, Short Pump, and the West End all read 804. Mid-market wealth advisory, RIA practices, retirement-plan consultants, and CFP-credentialed planners across the West End and downtown anchor 804 for the Virginia Bureau of Financial Institutions and Virginia Bureau of Insurance jurisdictional read. The Virginia529 plan, the Virginia Retirement System administration, and the broader public-pension and 529 footprint all sit inside the 804 institutional ring.

Corporate Headquarters and Logistics

Altria Group's corporate headquarters at 6601 West Broad Street, Performance Food Group's global headquarters at 12500 West Creek Parkway in Goochland, Markel Group at Innsbrook, Genworth Financial in West End Henrico, Owens & Minor at 9120 Lockwood Boulevard in Mechanicsville (Hanover), CarMax in Goochland, Brink's in Henrico, Dominion Energy on Tredegar Street downtown, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond on East Byrd Street all anchor 804 on corporate communications. The logistics-and-distribution belt running I-95 north toward Ashland and south toward Petersburg, the Richmond Marine Terminal on the James, and the broader Henrico and Hanover industrial corridors read 804.

Real Estate, Mortgage, and Construction

The Richmond-metro real-estate market is one of the most submarket-segmented in Virginia. Henrico West End / Tuckahoe / Three Chopt / Innsbrook and Short Pump listings, the Fan and Museum District in the city, Manchester and South Side, Church Hill and Shockoe, Brandermill and Woodlake in Chesterfield, Salisbury in Chesterfield, Wyndham and the Far West End in Henrico, Mechanicsville and Atlee in Hanover, Manakin-Sabot in Goochland — every submarket has its own broker tier, and Virginia Real Estate Board licensure keys off the 804 prefix as a small jurisdictional signal. Yard signs, open-house riders, and listing flyers all read 804 default. Mortgage operators specifically: mortgage vanity phone numbers. Agents: real estate vanity phone numbers. Custom-home and residential-construction operators clustered across Chesterfield, Hanover, Goochland, and Powhatan: contractor vanity phone numbers.

Restaurants, Hospitality, Breweries, and Scott's Addition

Scott's Addition between the Boulevard and the Diamond — the industrial-revival brewery-and-cidery district that reshaped Richmond's hospitality footprint over the 2010s — anchors the brewery, distillery, cidery, taproom, and adjacent fitness-studio register on 804. Carytown on West Cary Street, the Fan on Main and West Cary, Shockoe Bottom and Shockoe Slip on East Cary, Manchester on Hull Street and Bainbridge, Church Hill on East Broad and 25th Street, and the Boulevard / Museum District anchor independent-restaurant and small-hospitality operators on 804. Independent coffee operators, salon-and-studio operators, fitness studios, and creator-class small businesses across these neighborhoods anchor the public-facing 804 read. Restaurant vanity phone numbers covers the hospitality register.

Personal, Creator-Class, and Side-Hustle Buyers

Not every 804 buyer is a Virginia-licensed operator. Richmond's creator-class footprint — VCU Arts alumni, the Studio School graduates and faculty across the city, podcasters, online-course operators, real-estate-team co-leads building personal brands separate from a brokerage, fitness instructors building independent direct-booking lines, side-hustle operators in every industry — all use a clean 804 the same way a small business does: as a memorable, owned-forever recall number that survives carrier changes and platform changes. Personal use cases also include Virginia natives moving back to Richmond from out-of-state who want a Virginia prefix for the homecoming, gift recipients (numbers can be transferred at purchase), and longtime Richmonders who want a vanity ending tied to a name, a birthday, an anniversary, or a regimental / class-year nod. Personal vanity phone numbers covers the non-business buyer register.

Cross-Metro Operators and the 804 / 757 / 703 Decision

Virginia is one of the few states where the area-code seam carries genuine regulatory and identity weight inside a single state. 804 is Richmond and central Virginia. 757 is Hampton Roads — Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Newport News, Hampton, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, the Eastern Shore. 703 / 571 is Northern Virginia — Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William. 540 is the Shenandoah Valley, the Roanoke region, and most of southwest Virginia outside the I-81 corridor's eastern edge. Customers, counterparties, and other Virginia-licensed operators read those prefixes with real precision.

An operator with offices in both Richmond and Hampton Roads typically maintains separate 804 and 757 lines for the two metros, with the registered-agent address keyed to the primary office and the secondary office forwarded. An operator with Richmond and Northern Virginia footprints faces a sharper read — 703 carries a substantial Beltway-DC-adjacent register that 804 does not, and the markets are read as distinct by counterparties. Picking one prefix for a multi-region Virginia operator usually keys off where the registered agent and the primary licensing board sit. We treat 757 as a separate buying decision; see 757 vanity phone numbers — Norfolk and Hampton Roads for that page.

Five-Year Cost Math: One-Time Purchase vs Monthly Vanity-Number Subscription

Every page-1 vanity-number competitor — RingBoost, NumberBarn, PhoneNumberGuy, 800.com, the broader RingCentral / Phone.com / Grasshopper PBX-with-vanity-add-on tier — packages vanity numbers as recurring-fee subscriptions. The math runs differently than an outright purchase. A representative subscription range observed across competitors is $9.99 to $50 per month per number for the vanity feature itself, before usage and per-line PBX charges. Across five years of operating the line, the monthly model totals between $599 and $3,000 per number on subscription costs alone. If the line is the public-facing recall number for a Capitol-corridor lobbying practice, an Innsbrook insurance shop, a Short Pump retail operator, a Chesterfield builder, or a Scott's Addition restaurant, the line is operational for far longer than five years and the cumulative drag continues compounding. The number is also not yours; cancel the subscription, you lose the line, and so does every customer who memorized it.

The outright-purchase model on this catalog runs From $200–$250 as the verified site-wide floor, with most Richmond-relevant inventory pricing across pattern tiers above that. The distinction in the cost model is the recurring-fee versus one-time difference; the line-itself ports onto your carrier of choice through standard FCC-governed local number portability, and you own the assigned number for as long as you keep it active on a carrier. Lease-versus-purchase is the right mental frame: the subscription model is a perpetual lease, and the catalog here sells the title outright. A buyer's guide to special phone numbers for sale walks through the broader category framing.

Carrier Transfer, Porting, and What FCC Rules Actually Require

After purchase, the assigned 804 number ports onto the carrier of your choice — Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Comcast Xfinity Mobile, US Cellular, Cox, Spectrum, regional Virginia carriers, RingCentral, Dialpad, Grasshopper, Google Voice, OpenPhone, GoTo Connect, or any other CLEC or VoIP provider that supports inbound LNP. The Federal Communications Commission's local number portability rules govern the transfer process across all US carriers and require that the receiving carrier complete a valid port within reasonable timeframes given complete and accurate paperwork. The companion wireless local number portability framework specifically governs cell-to-cell, cell-to-VoIP, and landline-to-cell port direction across providers nationally — including every Virginia-licensed mobile carrier serving the Richmond metro.

Practical timing: the standard wireline-to-wireline or VoIP-to-VoIP simple port typically completes in one to three business days when the customer name, service address, and account credentials match across carriers exactly. A wireless-to-wireless simple port often completes within four hours under the WLNP framework. Complex ports involving multiple lines, hunt groups, PRI circuits, or business-class mismatches between losing and gaining carrier can take longer; that is a paperwork issue, not number-availability issue. The number itself is portable from the moment of purchase. What we do not do is host PBX, voicemail, IVR, SMS routing, or call analytics — those are downstream of porting and live with whichever carrier or VoIP platform you select for routing the line.

If an 804 option is not the right fit, compare the broader Virginia vanity numbers collection for Richmond, Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads, and statewide area-code options.

Related vanity-number buyer guides

Use these related guides to compare one-time purchase options, carrier transfer fit, and memorable local number patterns:

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Washington DC Vanity Numbers for Federal, Policy, and Local Buyers

For buyers who specifically need a District of Columbia presence, browse the Washington DC vanity phone numbers collection. It focuses on local DC-area numbers buyers can own outright and transfer to an eligible US carrier, rather than rented toll-free or subscription-only numbers.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between 804 and 686 in Richmond?

804 is the legacy Richmond-metro area code assigned in 1947 and narrowed to Richmond-and-central-Virginia geography after the 1996 757 split. 686 is the 2022 overlay added to relieve 804 exhaustion. They share the same geography — Richmond city, Henrico, Chesterfield, Hanover, Goochland, Powhatan, and the I-95 corridor running north and south. Mandatory ten-digit dialing applies inside the overlay zone. Inside the metro, an 804 reads as a legacy resident line and a 686 reads as a 2022-or-later install. For most local-recall buyers in 2026, 804 carries the incumbency signal that 686 does not yet have.

Do I need a Virginia business license to buy an 804 vanity phone number?

No. The phone number is a US-portable telephone resource, not a Virginia regulatory artifact. You do not need a Virginia State Corporation Commission filing, a Virginia State Bar admission, a Virginia Bureau of Insurance license, a Virginia Real Estate Board license, or a Virginia DPOR registration to buy the number. Anyone with a US-domiciled carrier or VoIP account that supports inbound porting can hold the line. The prefix carries a residency read in the Richmond metro that some industries weight more heavily than others — Capitol-corridor legal practice and government-affairs consulting weight it heavily; out-of-state customers do not parse it at all.

Can a non-Richmond business use an 804 vanity phone number?

Yes. Out-of-metro operators who serve the Richmond market — a Charlottesville firm with a Richmond practice line, a DC firm covering Capitol Square work, a North Carolina firm with a Virginia satellite, a national operator with a Richmond customer concentration — can hold an 804 line and route it onto any carrier they prefer. The read inside the metro will be "this firm has a Richmond presence," which is exactly the signal an out-of-metro operator with Richmond business is usually trying to convey. The honest framing is that the 804 is a deliberate signal, not an automatic claim of resident headquarters.

How much does an 804 vanity phone number cost?

Pricing across our verified site-wide catalog spans From $250 to $25,000 as a one-time purchase, with most Richmond-relevant inventory pricing across pattern tiers above the $200–$250 floor. There is no monthly subscription fee on the number itself; the catalog sells the line outright. Pattern strength — repeating four-digit endings, ascending sequences, mirrors, AABB structures, single-digit-heavy tails — drives the price band on any given line. A representative pricing distribution from a 2,000-product sample showed a $500 median and a $600 P75 across the catalog. Browse current Virginia inventory at Virginia vanity numbers.

Will the 804 number work on my mobile phone, my office VoIP, or my landline?

Yes, on any of the three. Once the number is assigned, it ports onto whichever carrier or VoIP platform you select — Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Comcast Xfinity Mobile, US Cellular, RingCentral, Dialpad, OpenPhone, Grasshopper, GoTo Connect, Google Voice, or any other US carrier that supports inbound LNP. The FCC's local number portability framework governs the port and requires the receiving carrier to complete a valid port given accurate paperwork. The number itself is medium-agnostic.

How long does the carrier transfer take for an 804 number?

Standard wireline-to-wireline or VoIP-to-VoIP simple ports typically complete in one to three business days when the customer name, service address, and account credentials match across carriers exactly. Wireless-to-wireless simple ports often complete within four hours under the WLNP framework. Complex ports involving hunt groups, PRI circuits, multiple lines, or business-class mismatches can take longer — that is a paperwork issue, not number-availability issue. The number is portable from the moment of purchase.

Can I send and receive SMS on an 804 vanity phone number?

Yes, depending on the carrier or VoIP platform that holds the line after port. Most major US wireless carriers support SMS on ported numbers under the standard messaging framework. Most VoIP platforms (RingCentral, Dialpad, OpenPhone, Grasshopper, GoTo Connect) support SMS, with A2P 10DLC registration required for any meaningful business-volume messaging — the standard A2P 10DLC framework administered through The Campaign Registry applies to the number regardless of which platform routes it. If you intend to run high-volume SMS marketing or customer notifications, register the brand and the campaign through whichever VoIP platform you select before scaling messaging volume.

How is 804 different from 757 if both are Virginia?

804 covers the Richmond metropolitan area — Richmond city, Henrico, Chesterfield, Hanover, Goochland, Powhatan, and the I-95 corridor running north and south. 757 covers Hampton Roads — Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Newport News, Hampton, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, and the Eastern Shore. They are different metros with different industries, different submarkets, and different incumbent operator bases. Hampton Roads is anchored by the US Navy footprint at Naval Station Norfolk, the broader DoD footprint, the Port of Virginia at Norfolk International Terminals, the shipbuilding and ship-repair tier, and the Eastern Shore agricultural belt. Richmond is anchored by state government, Fortune 500 corporate headquarters, academic medicine at VCU Health, and the Innsbrook financial-services corridor. The two prefixes are not interchangeable inside Virginia; locals read each as a distinct metro signal.

What happens if I move my business out of the 804 area later?

The number stays yours and ports with you onto whichever carrier or VoIP platform you select in the new market. It will still read as an 804 prefix to anyone who calls it; that is accurate-and-honest if you maintain a Richmond presence (a satellite office, a Richmond customer base, a Virginia-licensed practice still active in the state) and is something to weigh against your customer-perception priorities if you fully exit the market. The portability of the number is not in question — the FCC framework explicitly preserves number ownership across geographic moves nationally.

Is 804 inventory limited compared to other Virginia codes?

804 inventory is finite and scarcer in 2026 than five years ago — that is precisely why 686 was activated as an overlay in 2022. Clean four-digit-pattern 804 numbers, particularly those with strong repeating tails or ascending sequences, are scarcer than they were and tend to price into higher pattern bands. That said, the Richmond-metro footprint is large enough that current 804 inventory still spans pattern tiers from entry-level repeating patterns up through premium-tier structures. From $200–$250 is the verified site-wide floor across all states. Browse current Virginia availability at Virginia vanity numbers.

About Digit Exclusive and Where to Get Help

Digit Exclusive is a US-only one-time-purchase vanity phone number catalog. We do not run a subscription model on the numbers themselves. Buy the line once, port it onto your carrier of choice, and own the assigned number for as long as you keep it active. Inventory spans 56-plus US area codes and all 50 states plus DC, with a deep selection of-plus unique vanity numbers across pattern tiers — single-digit-heavy tails, repeating endings, ascending and descending sequences, AABB / ABAB / ABBA structures, mirrors, and premium one-of-one patterns. Verified site-wide pricing runs From $200–$250 across the catalog. Pricing on Richmond-relevant inventory is shown at the product level inside Virginia vanity numbers.

Background reading on the model: how the outright-purchase model works and a buyer's guide to special phone numbers for sale. About the company: about Digit Exclusive. To reach the team for inventory questions, paperwork on a specific line, custom requests, or carrier-transfer coordination: contact.

Readers who landed on this 804 area-code page from a general "buy a phone number" or "phone number for sale" search may also want the broader buyer reference at buy a phone number outright — five-step purchase flow, side-by-side cost table versus monthly-subscription rentals, FCC Local Number Portability rules, and FAQ. Same outright model applies to every 804 number listed below.

For the full index of US area codes covered in the catalog — 103 NPA buying guides across all 50 states — see area codes for sale. Browse by state or by area code from 804 through every other NPA in the index.

Related number browsing: repeating digits

Related guide: 304 Vanity Phone Numbers West Virginia.

Subscription vs outright purchase: If you are weighing recurring subscriptions against a one-time purchase, our Google Voice alternatives for business comparison covers real 2026 pricing, A2P 10DLC failures, and Workspace-bundle traps for owned-number alternatives.

Dedicated landing page: Our phone number for therapy private practice page covers the HIPAA-disclosure-honest framing — what we sell (the number), what we do not sell (a BAA-compliant platform), and the workflow to pair with Spruce Health, Doximity Dialer, or OpenPhone HIPAA tier.

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Every guide ends at the same place: real one-of-one US numbers, sold outright, ported to your carrier under FCC §52. Pick your starting point below.