Can I keep my landline number when I switch?

Somewhere between deciding to switch and actually placing the order, the same question tends to surface: can I keep my landline number, or does a number half the family has known for thirty years quietly end with the old contract? The short answer is that you almost certainly can, and that it is a right rather than a favour. The longer answer is about timing, because a number is far easier to keep than it is to get back.

Can I keep my landline number?

Yes, in almost every case, and your current provider is not in a position to refuse. Number portability is set out in General Condition B3 of Ofcom’s General Conditions of Entitlement, the rules every provider in the country operates under. It obliges them to provide portability when another provider asks on your behalf, as soon as is reasonably practicable and on reasonable terms.

Two useful things follow from that wording. Portability is an obligation on the industry rather than a feature one company sells and another does not, so a provider treating it as awkward is not exercising a choice. And the obligation runs between the two providers rather than to you directly, which is why the work on your side is mostly a matter of asking clearly, to the right company, at the right moment.

What porting actually moves

The number, and nothing else. Porting hands the number over to the new network so calls to it arrive with your new service, while everything physical stays where it is. Your wiring, your socket and your router have nothing to do with it, and neither does the old copper line continuing to exist. That is also why the industry-wide move to a phone that runs through the router does not cost anyone their number, as our guide to the landline that needs a router goes through.

It is a handover between two companies, so both of them have to know it is happening. Obvious, and still the most common way the whole thing falls over.

What to say when you order

Say it at order stage, not afterwards. Once the new service is being set up as a fresh line with a new number, changing course is harder than starting correctly:

• Give the number in full. Read it out, then check it back. A single wrong digit turns into a port request for somebody else’s line, which fails rather than transfers.
• Say you want to port it. Use that word. Porting an existing number and provisioning a new one are two different jobs on the provider’s side, and the default is usually the second.
• Get it onto the order, not into a conversation. Ask for the order confirmation to show the number being transferred. A promise made on a call leaves nothing to point at later.
• Ask who is ending the old service. Under One Touch Switch that should be the new provider, which our guide to how switching actually works covers. Confirm it rather than assume it.

The mistake that loses a number

Ringing the old provider to cancel before the port has happened. It feels tidy and it is the one action that can genuinely cost you the number, because a number can only be moved while it is still live on an active service. Cancel first and there is nothing left to transfer.

There is a safety net, and it is narrow. Ofcom’s switching condition gives you a right to ask for a number that was ceased no more than 31 days ago to be ported, so a mistake spotted in the first few weeks is usually fixable. After that the number can go back into circulation and be given to somebody else, and there is no appeal against that.

What if the new provider does not sell a phone service?

Then there is nowhere for the number to land. This is the version of the problem that catches people moving to a smaller network, and it has nothing to do with the network being small. A port needs somewhere to arrive: some provider has to hold the number on a phone product. A broadband-only package, however good, cannot do that.

Some networks sell a phone service as an add on and some do not, so it is worth asking before you order rather than discovering it on install day. Where a network has no phone product at all, the honest options are to keep a phone service with somebody else, move the number to a provider who will take it, or accept losing it. Our guide to broadband without a landline covers what dropping the phone actually saves, which is the calculation worth doing before you decide the number matters.

Can I keep it when I move house?

Often not, and this is where the cheerful answer stops. Home phone numbers are geographic: the dialling code belongs to an area, not to you. Moving within the same area code is the favourable case and worth asking about. Moving somewhere with a different code usually means a new number, because the old one does not belong to where you are going.

That is a limit of how the numbering works rather than a provider being unhelpful, so it is not worth arguing. Our guide to broadband when moving house deals with the rest of what a move does to a contract.

What if the port goes wrong?

You should not be left with neither. The same switching condition says that where the porting process fails, the number and the relevant services have to be reactivated until it completes successfully. Knowing that is useful mainly because it tells you what to ask for: not sympathy, but the old service put back while the port is retried.

Keep the dates, the order reference and the name of whoever confirmed the port. If it stalls, that record is the difference between a complaint that gets somewhere and a phone call that goes round in circles.

Our view

Treat the number as part of the order rather than a detail to sort out later, and do not cancel anything yourself. Those two habits cover almost every way this goes wrong, and they cost nothing.

Then be honest about how much the number is worth to you. Plenty of households add up what a phone add on costs over two years and realise nobody has dialled the thing in a decade. If it does matter, ask about the phone service before you pick the network, not after. Start with what is actually available at your address, then ask each shortlisted provider the phone question before the price question.

Frequently asked questions

Does One Touch Switch move my number for me?

It moves the service, and the number goes with it only if you asked for it. One Touch Switch was designed so the new provider handles the whole changeover, including ending the old contract, which is a genuine improvement on the days of chasing both companies. It is not a promise that anything you did not mention gets carried across, so the number still has to be named on the order.

How long does it take to move a landline number?

There is no published deadline for a home phone number the way there is for a switch date. The obligation on providers is to port as soon as is reasonably practicable, which in practice means the number tends to move on or around the day the new service goes live rather than on a schedule of its own. Ask for the date in writing when you order, and treat a vague answer as a reason to ask again.

What if I have already cancelled the old service?

Ask straight away rather than assuming it is gone. Ofcom’s switching rules give you the right to request a port for a number that was ceased no more than 31 days ago, so a mistake caught quickly is often recoverable. Past that window there is no route back, which is why the order of events matters more here than almost anywhere else in a switch.

Can I keep the number but drop the phone service?

Not really, because a number has to sit on a service somewhere. If nobody is providing you with a phone service then there is nothing holding the number, and it lapses like any other ceased number. Households that want to keep a number they rarely use usually end up paying for the cheapest phone add on they can find, and that is a real cost worth weighing against how much the number is used.

Does my number change when the line moves to broadband voice?

No. The move from the old copper phone service to a phone that plugs into the router was designed so nobody loses a number because the technology underneath it changed. The number is the part that stays the same; what changes is where the handset plugs in and what happens to it in a power cut.