Have you ever wanted to put a phone number on the back-burner?
Monthly cell phone bills are no joke, and we can’t all afford to keep paying for a line through periods when we might not even use it. Carriers obviously would rather you do, and usually offer limited alternatives for how you can handle your number during pauses in service.
There are lots of circumstances when you might want to pause paying for your monthly service, but still hold on to your same phone number for later use:
- Maybe you’re switching to a new service provider, but for some reason there will be a gap between your old service ending and your new service beginning, so you can’t transfer directly.
- Maybe you’re traveling internationally for a while. Or moving to a whole different country and want to set up call forwarding when you arrive so you can keep using your same number.
- Maybe you’re going on a months-long meditation retreat at a desert hermitage to Get Away From It All, and you really don’t want anyone to reach you.
Whatever the reason, it’s entirely possible (and quite easy and inexpensive) to keep your phone number by putting it on hold without paying for your regular monthly service plan. It’s called number parking, and it’s a service that lots of third-party companies, such as NumberBarn, are more than happy to provide, even if the big phone carriers typically will not.
How do I save a phone number?
Your phone provider may offer a suspension or vacation hold option, but they often limit these to a short duration (except for deployed military), and they still charge a fee (e.g. $10 a month with Verizon).
If you choose to fully cancel your phone service, your provider will put your old number back into circulation for someone else’s new phone. You are unlikely to get it back if you return, particularly if you’re in a popular area code in a major city where people regularly move to, such as New York City.
The beauty of parking your number somewhere like NumberBarn is that you have far more control, and pay far less, with number parking plans starting at just $2 per month.
Plus, in addition to letting you keep your beloved phone number indefinitely, that low monthly fee also includes a variety of useful features. Parking can still let you receive incoming text messages, and view call logs through the app or website of people who try to reach you while your number is parked. You can record a 30-second message for contacts to hear when they call you, instructing them how to reach you as you travel, etc. (Or you can just tell a joke, sing a little song, do whatever — it’s your 30 seconds, and we’re not your boss!)
With your number safely parked, you can still get to do whatever you want with it:
- You can easily port it back to a regular phone provider (as is your legal right, according to the FCC!).
- You can also set up call forwarding to have incoming calls to your parked number automatically forward directly to any other U.S. or Canadian number of your choosing. This is particularly useful if you’re living abroad and still want people to reach you via your old, domestic phone number, for instance.
- You can even sell your phone number to someone else! Because you have a legal right to your own number, you are free to sell it to someone else. If you don’t think you’ll use it again, you might as well get a little something back for it. Random phone numbers aren’t likely to command a big price, but if your number happens to have a memorable pattern or spell something interesting, particularly in a popular area code, then you might have a little windfall coming your way. NumberBarn has a free tool for estimating your phone number’s potential worth to someone else.
- You can continue to use communication platforms like WhatsApp over Wi-Fi. This means you can still use your phone to interact with people while at home and in a lot of situations, but without paying for an expensive monthly data plan.
Take comfort in knowing that it’s your legal right in the U.S. to do whatever you want with your own phone number. The circumstances of our lives can change unpredictably. But it’s great to know that we have easy options for holding onto our phone numbers wherever we go and whatever we do, without paying an arm and a leg.
