The basics
How do I get a UK phone number from abroad?
Answer
Buy one online: HushSMS provisions British mobile numbers in the +44 7 range to anyone, anywhere, with no UK address, no UK bank account and no SIM. Select the United Kingdom at checkout, pay the crypto invoice, and the line is live in about 41 seconds from $5.22 a month on a twelve-month term. Nothing about the process requires you to be in the country or to have ever been.
The longer version
For anything global, the UK is the default recommendation, and not for patriotic reasons: British mobile ranges are trusted by verification systems almost everywhere, stock is deep, and the country still has no mandatory SIM registration regime. The one thing that trips people is format. Domestically a British mobile is written 07700 900123; internationally it is +44 7700 900123, with the trunk zero dropped. Enter it with the zero intact and the code will not arrive, and you will spend an hour blaming the provider.
See also
Related questions
Sources
- ITU-T Recommendation E.164 — The international public telecommunication numbering plan · International Telecommunication UnionCountry calling codes, national significant number lengths, number structure
- ITU-T E.164 national numbering plans (Operational Bulletin annex) · International Telecommunication UnionPer-country numbering plans, mobile ranges, trunk prefixes
- ITU-T Recommendation E.123 — Notation for national and international telephone numbers · International Telecommunication UnionHow the example numbers on country pages are formatted
- ISO 3166-1 — Codes for the representation of names of countries · International Organization for StandardizationTwo-letter country identifiers used throughout this catalogue
Answered by HushSMS, updated