Raise your hand if you have an irrational fear of parallel parking. Now, whether or not you know that “number parking” even exists, good news: it’s about a million times easier than parallel parking!
What is ‘number parking’?
“Number parking” is a service where you get to keep a specific telephone number you already have, even while you aren’t paying for it to stay in service with a traditional carrier.
In short, you have the ability to save or store your number until you’re ready to use it again. (You could even consider listing your phone number on a marketplace like NumberBarn and seeing if it’s the hot item. Some phone numbers are highly valuable, but that’s a different story.)
Let’s get into how phone number parking works.
Know this: phone providers will typically take your inactive phone number and put it back into circulation if you elect not to keep it. They won’t necessarily offer you the luxury of parking it with them, either. Luckily, there are other services out there that will help you out. (And don’t believe any provider that says it isn’t possible; the FCC literally has rules that state you are allowed to keep your old telephone number.)
As a bonus, if you’re wondering how much your phone digits might be worth if you were to sell them to someone else, click here.
Additional Phone Parking FAQs
- In what situations would I need my number ‘parked’?
- How to park your number
- Can I forward my calls to a new number?
- What happens when people call my parked number?
- My carrier offered me a ‘vacation hold.’ What is that?
- Can I reactivate a parked number?
In what situations would I need my number ‘parked’?
There are plenty of reasons why you’d park your old cell or landline number! But for example, maybe one of these is you right now:
- You’re currently in between phone providers (T-Mobile, AT&T, or anyone), but you still want to keep your old number while you find a new provider.
- You’re moving to a different country (or anywhere) and want to set up an international forwarding plan when you get there.
- Your old number is basically everywhere, and you don’t even know where to start with getting people to stop calling it.
- You just like your old number! It’s nostalgic and you don’t wanna lose it.
These reasons and more are some of the more common reasons why people park an old number. If one of these people above are you and you’re wondering how to park a number, there are multiple ways to get it done.
How to ‘park’ your number
Generally speaking, the path to parking a number first involves something called “porting it,” followed by paying to have it parked. And that’s pretty much it!
Transfer it over first
- Go to NumberBarn’s Parking Page and click on “Get Started.” You’ll be prompted to type in your number, which NumberBarn can instantly check to make sure it can be ported. (In some instances, there may be some extra steps, or your number may not be able to be ported, which is rare, but more typical with very old landlines.) Porting into NumberBarn typically requires a one-time fee of $5.
- The NumberBarn parking tool also allows you to transfer multiple numbers to park at one time, if you need to park them in batches, like for a call center.
Park your number
- On NumberBarn, generally you’ll pay a monthly fee of $2 to store your number, which is the best price in the industry.
- You’ll also get the option to receive inbound texts, call logs on an app or view your account in your browser (so you can see who is calling your old number), as well as to record an up to 30 second message for anyone who dials it.
That’s it! Storing a number shouldn’t have to be any more complicated than that, so run away if you find a service that charges huge fees, or which doesn’t look legit online.
Can I forward my calls to a new number?
Yes, but that’s a different thing than parking. If you’re interested in forwarding calls to a new number, click here to learn more about easy ways to do call forwarding.
What happens when people call my parked number?
Depending on the service you use, nothing… or something.
The cool thing about parking your number with NumberBarn is that you get to record an up to 30 second message (called an “outbound greeting”) for anyone who calls it!
So let’s say you wanted to park your number for only a short amount of time; in that scenario, you could record a personalized message telling people how they can reach you in the future! (I mean, you could record literally anything you wanted, so feel free to set up 30 seconds of hold music, if you like pranking people.)
My carrier offered me a ‘vacation hold.’ What is that?
Some carriers, such as T-Mobile, offer a short-term feature that they call a “vacation hold” or temporary “number suspension.” Services like these or similar typically give you the option to keep your old number without paying for it to stay in service, but usually only for a limited time (sometimes 90 days or less, sometimes under a year), and for fees of around $10 per month, when applicable.
While this sounds handy, even a one-month number park is a far cheaper solution.
Note: Some carriers do offer special suspension/vacation services for deployed military members, so if that’s the reason you’re inquiring, make sure to ask!
Can I reactivate a parked number?
Yes, in most cases!
You simply need to make sure your new carrier will be able to service your parked number. Each carrier (such as Verizon, T-Mobile, and others) has a porting tool on their website or app that can check if your number is portable to them (like Verizon’s tool), or you can ask an agent over the phone. But in most cases it’s a fairly straightforward process.
Depending on your situation, in many cases if you want to use your parked number like an activated number or a second phone number, you also have the option to use NumberBarn’s other plans. These include outbound calling (over wifi or your cellular plan connection), call forwarding, voicemail to email, call logs, inbound texts and more via NumberBarn’s mobile app or your browser, without having to port the number to another carrier.
This means that you can park it for however long you want, and then “turn on” one of NumberBarn’s plans to make it your phone number more functional while you decide what carrier you want to port it to. (You can of course just keep it with NumberBarn for as long as you’d like. NumberBarn brings you phone number flexibility and no contracts so you’re pretty much free to do whatever works best for you and your phone number.)
Need help parking your phone number?
If you need any help, NumberBarn can easily walk you through the process for any number you have parked with them, so won’t have to worry about ever getting stuck.
Click here to talk to a real-human NumberBarn Solutions Expert who can help get you in the right place with any questions about porting and parking your number.
