How to Look Up a Phone Number in Forsyth County
Start with the organization the caller claims to represent. Winston-Salem city service calls should be checked against the Winston-Salem staff directory, the city phone directory PDF, or CityLink. County agency calls should be checked through Forsyth County's departments index, Health and Human Services pages, the Sheriff's Office, or the Register of Deeds. Schools, universities, transit, utilities, courts, and state agencies each maintain separate official phone sources, so a single general search rarely gives the most reliable answer.
The strongest fallback chain is official directory, agency switchboard, in-person counter, then public-records request when the number is not published. CityLink is the human routing point for Winston-Salem city services by 311, 336-727-8000, text at 855-481-LINK, and citylink@cityofws.org. County offices use office-specific main lines instead of one countywide 311. Some records, including personal mobile numbers, witness information, protected victim information, juvenile records, sealed court details, and HIPAA-protected health records, will not be released through a phone directory.
CityLink and Winston-Salem City Hall
101 North Main Street
Winston-Salem, NC 27101
311 or 336-727-8000
Forsyth County Departments
County offices and service departments
Winston-Salem, NC
Use office-specific lines
Forsyth Register of Deeds
201 N Chestnut Street
Winston-Salem, NC 27101
336-703-2700
Winston-Salem City Staff Directory
Forsyth County's largest municipal phone source is the City of Winston-Salem directory, because Winston-Salem is the county seat and the main city service provider for many residents. The directory covers City Hall, CityLink, City Council, City Manager, Community Assistance Liaisons, City Clerk, Finance, Fire, Human Resources, Information Technology, Police, Recreation and Parks, Streets and Stormwater, Transportation, Utilities, and many other city departments. The city also publishes a Winston-Salem Government Directory PDF revised June 22, 2026, which is useful for employee and department extensions when the web directory does not show enough detail.
| Field | Type | Required | Notes / Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Dropdown | No | Default Staff Directory plus city departments, buildings, divisions, and nested categories such as Finance, Fire, HR, IT, Police, Utilities, Stormwater, Transportation, and Recreation. |
| First Name | Text | No | Free-text employee search; pairs with last name when known. |
| Last Name | Text | No | Free-text employee search; the page expects a name term or category selection. |
| Department tree | Browse links | No | Users can browse department pages such as City Hall or Utilities without entering a person's name. |
The City Hall sample record identifies the kind of business information a public directory entry can expose without publishing private contact data.
| Field | What It Shows |
|---|---|
| Name or category | City Hall as the public location record. |
| Physical address | 101 North Main Street, Winston-Salem, NC 27101. |
| Phone | 336-727-8000, the same main CityLink contact center number. |
| Email action | Email CityLink rather than a personal employee mailbox. |
| Office hours | 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. |
| Redactions | Business contact channels only; personal mobile or home numbers are not shown. |
County and State Numbers Serving Forsyth County
Forsyth County's own directory is browse-oriented rather than a single staff search portal. The county departments index routes users to Administration, Animal Services, Board of Elections, Emergency Services, Environmental Assistance and Protection, Health and Human Services, Human Resources, Inspections, Library, Parks and Recreation, Public Health, Register of Deeds, Sheriff, Social Services, Tax Administration, Veterans Services, and other offices. For DSS, NC DHHS also republishes Forsyth County Department of Social Services details, which is a strong official fallback when a county page is unavailable.
State agency local-office questions should be handled through the official state locator or complaint channel. Use the NCDMV office locator for driver license, tag, title, road test, and CDL offices. Use the NC Judicial Branch Forsyth County courthouse page for court offices and clerk routing. Use the North Carolina Utilities Commission and NC Public Staff for utility and telecom matters. Use the NC Attorney General complaint page for consumer fraud, scam, robocall, or impostor-call complaints.
Forsyth County Public Safety Phone Numbers
Public safety phone routing depends on immediacy and jurisdiction. Emergency calls in Forsyth County go to 911. Winston-Salem Police lists 336-773-7700 for non-emergency and information calls, including non-life-threatening police matters. The Forsyth County Sheriff's Office lists administration at 301 North Church Street, phone 336-917-7001, and the detention center at 201 North Church Street, phone 336-917-7600. For after-hours non-911 city problems such as water main breaks, downed trees, or traffic light outages, CityLink can alert the on-call city team.
911 - immediate threat to life or property, fire, crime in progress, or medical emergency.
988 - suicide, mental-health, or substance-use crisis support.
311 - Winston-Salem city services through CityLink; use 336-727-8000 when 311 is not available.
211 - NC 211 community-service referrals for food, shelter, rent help, utility assistance, health, and social services.
Poison Control - 1-800-222-1222 for poison exposure or medication and chemical questions.
- Winston-Salem Police non-emergency/information - 336-773-7700.
- Forsyth County Sheriff Administration - 336-917-7001.
- Forsyth County Detention Center - 336-917-7600.
- CityLink after-hours city service routing - 311 or 336-727-8000.
- National Domestic Violence Hotline - 1-800-799-7233.
- RAINN Sexual Assault Hotline - 1-800-656-4673.
School District and Campus Directories
Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools is the main K-12 phone directory source. The public staff directory supports staff-name filtering, a department filter, staff cards with title and department, phone display, and a Send Message action. The employee directory page and contact pages list district-wide function numbers, including Human Resources at 336-727-2786, Student Records at 336-727-2306, Student Assignment at 336-748-3302, Exceptional Children at 336-727-2083, Finance at 336-727-2822, and Transportation at 336-748-2287. The central-office PDF often omits the 336 area code on local seven-digit entries, so local callers may need to add 336 before dialing.
The WS/FCS employee directory is a district-level source for staff and central-office contacts.
The district directory is best for school-system roles and central-office routing, while individual school pages remain the right source for campus main-office numbers.
Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools
Public staff directory and central-office contacts
Forsyth County, NC
HR 336-727-2786
Wake Forest University
1834 Wake Forest Road
Winston-Salem, NC 27109
336-758-5000
Forsyth Technical Community College
Staff and faculty directory gateway
Winston-Salem, NC
Financial Aid 336-734-7235
The Forsyth Tech staff and faculty directory is another successful phone-number source captured for local education contacts.
Forsyth Tech phone routing should stay on official college pages because admissions, records, financial aid, cashier, and program contacts may change by campus or service area.
Utilities, Outages, and Transit Numbers
Utility phone lookups need a clear emergency and customer-service split. Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Utilities directs water, wastewater, and solid-waste service users to CityLink for prompt help. The customer page specifically says water emergencies and sewer backups should be called to CityLink instead of submitted only through the online 311 form. Duke Energy handles electric outage reporting and street or area light repair. Piedmont Natural Gas says anyone who suspects a gas leak should leave the area and call 800-752-7504 or 911. NC 811 is the call-before-you-dig number before excavation.
| Utility or service | Emergency / outage | Customer service / routine |
|---|---|---|
| Water, wastewater, solid waste | Water emergency or sewer backup: call CityLink at 311 or 336-727-8000. | CityLink by phone, text, email, online request, or in person for start/stop/transfer service. |
| Start, stop, or transfer utilities | Not an emergency service. | 336-727-8000 or Suite 121, 100 East First Street, Winston-Salem. |
| Duke Energy electric | Use Duke outage reporting; streetlight outages can also be reported at 800-769-3766 per CityLink FAQ. | Duke account and customer-service channels. |
| Piedmont Natural Gas | Gas leak: evacuate, then call 800-752-7504 or 911. | Piedmont customer-service page for billing and account questions. |
| NC 811 | Dial 811 before digging; not an emergency repair line. | NC811.org locate request process. |
| Winston-Salem Transit Authority | 911 for transit emergencies. | WSTA and Trans-AID: 336-727-2000. |
The Duke Energy outage page is the official electric outage reporting source in the manifest.
Outage tools are better than a general web search because they connect the account, service address, outage map, and restoration workflow.
The WSTA Trans-AID page documents paratransit contact routing for eligible older adults and people with disabilities.
Transit calls should distinguish fixed-route service, ADA or Trans-AID eligibility, and emergency safety issues, because each path has a different routing point.
Health and Social Services Numbers in Forsyth County
Forsyth County Health and Human Services is the main local health and benefits phone cluster. Public Health is at 799 North Highland Avenue, 336-703-3100. Social Services is at 741 North Highland Avenue, 336-703-3800. Bridges to Hope is at 725 North Highland Avenue, 336-776-3255. Behavioral Health Services is at 650 Highland Avenue, 336-703-2600. Environmental Health is 336-703-3225. Communicable Disease has an after-hours provider emergency line at 336-409-0357; that provider line should not be treated as a general resident hotline.
NC DHHS is the state fallback for Forsyth DSS information, and NC 211 is the referral line for community resources such as food, shelter, rent assistance, health referrals, disability services, senior services, and disaster resources. Hospitals serving Forsyth County include Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist / Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and Novant Health Forsyth Medical Center, but hospital department numbers should be verified on official hospital contact pages rather than third-party listings.
Vital Records, Courts, and Licensing Numbers
The Forsyth County Register of Deeds is the correct local office for marriage licenses, land records, and vital-record indexes. The office is listed at 201 N Chestnut Street, Winston-Salem, phone 336-703-2700, fax 336-748-3158. Its online lookup supports free searches of land records, miscellaneous documents, and vital-record indexes. Actual images of real-estate documents are available online, while birth, death, and marriage record images are not online, only indexes.
Court questions are separate from Register of Deeds work. Use the NC Judicial Branch Forsyth County courthouse page for clerk, court records, estates, civil, criminal, and courthouse routing. Legal Aid of North Carolina is the statewide civil legal-help source, and the North Carolina Bar Association lawyer referral resource is the official lawyer-referral channel. Tax, elections, inspections, permits, and business-license questions should start at the county departments index or Winston-Salem Planning and Development directory categories, because exact office phone numbers were not fully captured in the research.
Official Reverse Lookup and Verification
Official reverse lookup is really official verification. If a caller claims to be CityLink, check 311 or 336-727-8000. If the claim is Public Health, verify 336-703-3100. If the claim is Wake Forest, use 336-758-5000 or the campus directory. If the claim is Winston-Salem Police, use 336-773-7700 for non-emergency information and 911 for emergencies. Do not treat a callback number provided by the caller as proof.
- Write down the full caller ID, date, time, voicemail wording, and any payment or personal-data request.
- Search the official agency directory for the claimed office, not a general people-search site.
- For reassigned-number context, use the FCC Reassigned Numbers Database, noting that full use is mainly a business compliance workflow.
- Use NANPA's area-code report only to confirm area-code geography; it does not identify a caller.
- Report unwanted or spoofed calls through the FCC, FTC, NC DOJ, NCUC, local police non-emergency, or carrier spam tools as appropriate.
Official vs third-party: Agency directories confirm whether a number is published by the office. Reverse-lookup services may add carrier, owner, or spam context, but they are not government records.
Third-Party Reverse-Lookup Tools
The tools below are third-party services, not official Forsyth County, North Carolina, FCC, FTC, school, utility, or court records. They can be useful for unknown 336 or 743 calls, especially when the question is spam risk, possible carrier, or line type. Results may be stale, paid, crowdsourced, app-based, or affected by number portability. Low-tier people-search aggregators are not included.
| Tool | Free? | Returns name | Returns carrier | Returns line type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whitepages Reverse Phone | Freemium/paid | Sometimes; deeper details may be paid. | Sometimes | Sometimes |
| NumLookup | Free/freemium | Sometimes | Sometimes | Sometimes |
| Truecaller | Freemium | Community or business names | Sometimes | Sometimes |
| RoboKiller | Free/freemium | Spam identity when known | Limited | Spam classification |
| YouMail Directory | Free | Spam or robocall labels | Limited | Spam category |
| Carrier scam tools | Included or paid tiers | Caller ID or spam label | Carrier-owned | Spam risk |
AT&T ActiveArmor, Verizon Call Filter, and T-Mobile Scam Shield are carrier tools for blocking or labeling suspicious calls on the user's own line. They are useful for repeat unwanted calls, but they do not replace calling an official Forsyth County office, school, court, hospital, or utility number pulled from the source agency.
Line Type, Carrier, and Local Prefix Cautions
Forsyth County numbers often look local because 336 remains the familiar public-office area code and 743 is the overlay for the same geography. Prefixes can add local context: 336-727, 336-747, and 336-748 appear often in Winston-Salem city and school contacts; 336-703 appears in county HHS and records; 336-917 appears for the Sheriff's Office; 336-758 is common at Wake Forest; 336-734 appears in Forsyth Tech contacts. These patterns help with recognition, but they do not prove identity.
| Line type | Forsyth County context | Lookup/use notes |
|---|---|---|
| Legacy landline or PBX | Older government, school, university, hospital, and business systems may use direct-dial blocks or main switchboards. | AT&T legacy territory and institutional phone systems can preserve older prefixes. |
| Cable or VoIP landline | Local 336 or 743 numbers may be assigned to internet-based phone service. | A local caller ID may not mean the caller is physically in Forsyth County. |
| Wireless / mobile | Mobile numbers can keep old 336 prefixes and move anywhere. | Number portability breaks simple prefix-to-carrier assumptions. |
| MVNO | Cricket, Mint, Visible, Boost, Tracfone, and similar brands may use host networks. | Carrier lookups may show the host network, MVNO, or stale assignment. |
| Toll-free | 800, 888, 877, 866, 855, 844, and 833 are not geographic. | Verify toll-free numbers on the agency or company page before returning a call. |
Carrier lookup tools such as Twilio Lookup, basic carrier lookup sites, carrier apps, and reverse-lookup services can identify line type or carrier clues. Use them as supporting evidence only. Spoofing, porting, PBX outbound caller ID, call forwarding, and VoIP assignments can all make the visible number less reliable than the official directory listing.
Reporting Scam Calls and Robocalls in Forsyth County
A 336 or 743 caller ID is not proof that a call is local. Spoofers can display prefixes that resemble Winston-Salem city, Forsyth County HHS, Wake Forest, WS/FCS, the Sheriff's Office, courts, hospitals, or utilities. Common local patterns include utility shutoff threats, sheriff or jury-duty warrant scams, public-benefits requests for Medicaid or SNAP data, school emergency payment scams, bank passcode requests, grandparent scams, and voice-cloning claims. The safer response is to end the call, find the official number independently, and call back.
| Reporting channel | URL / phone | What to bring |
|---|---|---|
| FTC Do Not Call Registry | donotcall.gov | Your number, caller number, date/time, robocall or live-call details, and claimed company. |
| FCC Consumer Complaint Center | consumercomplaints.fcc.gov | Caller ID, date/time, spoofing details, call description, and recordings if available. |
| NC DOJ consumer complaint | ncdoj.gov/file-a-complaint | Caller or business name, phone number, documents, screenshots, and payment demands. |
| NC Utilities Commission | ncuc.gov/contactus.html | Utility or telecom provider, account issue, complaint documents, and contact history. |
| Winston-Salem Police non-emergency | 336-773-7700 | Local fraud reports where money or property was lost, or threats were made. |
| 911 | 911 | Immediate danger, active threat, or crime in progress. |
| Carrier spam tools | ActiveArmor, Call Filter, Scam Shield | Block or report repeat unwanted callers at the phone-carrier level. |
Before reporting: Save the caller ID, voicemail, text message, date, time, and payment instructions. Specific reports are more useful than a general spam complaint.
Community Resource Directories for Forsyth County
CityLink 311 is the strongest hyper-local action channel because it supports phone, text, email, online service requests, and the mobile app for Winston-Salem city issues. The app workflow can use GPS, photos, department routing, and status tracking for reports such as potholes, broken streetlights, parking-meter issues, and similar city-service requests. For countywide human-service referrals, NC 211 should be paired with Forsyth County HHS rather than substituted for agency-specific benefit lines or emergency response.
Large institutional switchboards also matter for local phone searches. CityLink handles municipal service routing at 311 or 336-727-8000. Forsyth Public Health uses 336-703-3100, DSS uses 336-703-3800, the Sheriff uses 336-917-7001, Wake Forest directory assistance uses 336-758-5000, Forsyth Tech publishes directory and student-service contacts, and WSTA uses 336-727-2000 for transit and Trans-AID. These official channels are the best way to separate a valid local number from an unknown caller using a local-looking prefix.