How To Port A Phone Number

Number porting is when you transfer a phone number from one carrier to another. You can port any type of phone number, including landline, mobile and VoIP. In addition to porting between providers, such as switching your cell number from T-Mobile to Verizon, you can also port between calling technologies such as transferring your number from landline or mobile to a virtual VoIP number.

To port a phone number, contact your new provider and initiate a request through your account’s admin portal or by contacting your provider over the phone. You’ll need to provide your new carrier with information like the numbers you’re porting, the associated address, the account and PIN, and a few recent phone bills.

After you initiate and authorize the request, your provider handles the rest, and you can usually begin using your numbers with the new service in as little as a couple of days.

Here’s a step-by-step breakdown of how to port a phone number:

1. Review Your Old Contract

Before you request to port the number to your new carrier, review your old contract to ensure you won’t face any termination fees and that you can cancel your account once you port the number. Don’t terminate your service yet; wait until you’ve ported the number.

2. Choose a New Provider

Your new phone service provider will initiate the number porting, so if you haven’t already, you must decide who your new carrier will be. If you’re looking for a business phone system, many feature-rich VoIP services are easy to set up and cost as little as $10 monthly per user.

3. Confirm Eligibility and Fees With New Provider

Before you initiate the port request, check with your new provider to see if it charges any fees for number porting. Most VoIP and mobile providers do not charge a number porting fee, but some—like Google Voice—charge a small one-time fee for each ported number.

You should also confirm that the numbers you’re porting are eligible with your new provider. Nearly all local and toll-free numbers will be eligible. Regardless, most mobile and VoIP providers have a way to confirm eligibility for the numbers you’re porting.

Before porting, confirm the phone number is eligible to be ported to the new service. Most VoIP and mobile providers let you do this on their websites.

4. Prepare Relevant Information

Since the port request will require some basic information about your company and the numbers you’re porting, you should have this information on hand when you start the request.

Here’s what to have on hand when you initiate the port request:

• The number(s) you’re porting
• Account number and PIN (from your current provider)
• The address the numbers are registered to
• Access to recent phone bills

5. Sign Up and Initiate the Port Request

When you first sign up with a new carrier, most providers’ setup pages display an option to “port” or “keep” your current number. Initiating the request this way, and skipping a separate setup process, lets you jump ahead to step number five in the steps listed below.

Use the following steps to port your number to a new VoIP or mobile carrier:

1. Create an account with your new VoIP or mobile provider if you haven’t already.
2. Log in to the admin portal on your VoIP account.
3. Click on “Phone System” and “Phone Numbers.”
4. Click the “Port Numbers” button and begin the number porting process.
5. Enter the numbers you’re porting. You can type them individually and separate them with commas or batch-add a group of numbers from an Excel spreadsheet.
6. Enter the additional requested information, including the account number and PIN.
7. When completed, sign the Letter of Authorization virtually or check the box to authorize.

At this point, your provider handles the rest. All that’s left for you to do is monitor the porting status.

Most VoIP providers walk you step-by-step through the porting request process from the sign-up page or within your Admin portal.

6. Monitor the Port Status

After you submit the port request, you can begin using your new number within 24 hours—whether VoIP or mobile. However, it can take up to a few weeks in some cases, such as if your old provider is slow to respond. Typically, your provider will notify you once the number has been ported. However, you can also monitor the porting status from the same Admin portal page where you initiated the request.

You can cancel your old phone service as soon as you’re able to make calls with the new provider.

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While the list above handles the basics of number porting, the tips below may help in specific use cases—such as if you’re porting a toll-free number or a business number from which you plan to text customers. There are also a couple things that can delay your number porting timeline.

When porting a number, keep the following tips in mind:

A2P 10DLC Registration

If you plan to use your business phone number to text customers, you must complete an Application-to-Person 10-digit-long code (A2P 10DLC) registration with your provider before you can port the number. This registration can take up to a week and, if not handled beforehand, can hold up the number porting process.

Toll-Free Numbers

Porting a toll-free or vanity number involves the same process as the local number porting described above. However, some providers may require you to submit separate requests for your toll-free and local numbers.

Things That Can Delay the Number Porting Process

While porting a number generally takes no longer than a couple of days, there are a couple factors that can postpone the process.

• The number is inactive: If you’re porting an inactive number or one from a canceled account, this complicates things for your new provider and can add several days or weeks to the process.
• Your current provider is unresponsive: If your current provider is slow to respond, or has any issues releasing the number when your new provider reaches out, this can prolong the porting process by days or weeks.

Porting your number is useful when you want to switch providers or networks but keep the same number(s) you’ve always used. For example, many businesses switching from landline to cloud-based VoIP telephony choose to port their numbers between phone systems to maintain a consistent identity and avoid interrupting communications.

Here are some of the reasons to port a phone number.

• Maintain a consistent identity: If the public, your customers or your friends have become familiar with your phone number, it’s helpful to maintain it when you switch providers.
• Replacing landlines: If your company or home still relies on landline service, you may consider switching to VoIP service due to its low cost, easy setup and advanced business phone system features. VoIP providers make it easy and quick to port phone numbers as soon as under a week.
• Better service: You may consider porting your number to a different mobile provider or VoIP system if the new service offers better coverage in your area.
• Lower cost: You may want to port your number to a new telephony provider that offers lower monthly rates, such as a cheap VoIP service.