Phone number retention rules, by country and carrier
Every carrier rule we have verified for how long an unused phone number survives, what holds it, and what it costs. One row per carrier, dated.
Checked against official pages on September 22, 2026. Rules move; when this one does, it goes on the changelog.
| Country | Carrier | Accounts | If you do nothing | Cheapest hold | Roaming for codes | Twelve months | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| India | Jio | prepaid | 90 days without qualifying usage, then your balance decides which of two paths applies | A balance above 20 rupees, which puts the Automatic Number Retention Scheme into effect | Unverified | About 240 rupees, if the retention charge runs for twelve months at the published rate | 2026-09-22 |
| India | Airtel | prepaid | 90 days without qualifying usage, and only when the main balance is under 20 rupees | A balance of 20 rupees or more, from which 20 rupees is deducted every 30 days | Unverified | About 240 rupees in retention charges, separate from whatever keeps plan benefits running | 2026-09-22 |
| India | Vi | prepaid | 90 days without qualifying usage, and only when the main balance is under 20 rupees | A balance of 20 rupees or more, deducted at 20 rupees every 30 days | Unverified | About 240 rupees in retention charges, with the shortest benefits grace of the three networks | 2026-09-22 |
| India | BSNL | prepaid | unverified | unverified | Unverified | unverified | 2026-09-22 |
The table above is the whole site in one view: every carrier rule we have read on the carrier's own page, with the date we read it. It grows one verified card at a time and never faster.
How to read a row
If you do nothing is the rule as that carrier states it, not as we summarize it. Where a carrier makes deactivation conditional on two things at once, which several do, the cell says so, because meeting one condition and not the other is the commonest way people lose a number they believed was safe.
Cheapest hold is the smallest thing that keeps the number, which is often not the smallest thing that keeps your plan working. Those are separate clocks on most networks and the difference is a recurring theme in the cards.
Roaming for codes answers one question only: does that carrier publish that its network must be set to roam before verification messages will reach you abroad? A blank here is common, because carriers write about the price of roaming far more often than about its prerequisites.
Twelve months is arithmetic, not a quoted price. Where a carrier publishes a recurring retention charge, we multiply it out and say so. Where it publishes a plan price instead, that belongs on its own page, because plan prices move faster than this table can follow.
Checked is the date someone opened the source and confirmed the rule there. A rule with no date is a rumor, and this column is why the site exists.
What unverified means, and what it does not
An unverified cell means we could not confirm that fact on an official page. It does not mean the carrier has no rule, and it never means the carrier is worse than one whose cell is filled in.
The distinction has teeth. Our BSNL card is almost entirely unverified because BSNL's own site did not answer three different clients on the day we tried, and that says nothing whatever about BSNL's policy. Meanwhile the regulator's floor still binds every operator in the country, so a reader with an unverified carrier is not without protection; they are without the carrier's own statement of what it adds on top.
We would rather show you a blank with its reason than a number with a shrug behind it.
Where the rules actually live
A note for anyone doing this themselves, because it cost us a day. The obvious places are the worst ones. Carrier FAQ sections and plan pages are increasingly JavaScript applications that serve an empty shell to anything that is not a browser, and it is easy to conclude from a few of those that a carrier publishes nothing.
Three of the four Indian carriers in this table publish their non-usage rules in full. None of them publish it where a reader would look first. Jio's is in a regulatory terms document on its content delivery network, Airtel's is inside the terms attached to prepaid plan vouchers, and Vi's is in a tariff filing made to the regulator. The pattern is that the regulatory and terms directories are plain documents while the marketing pages are applications, so that is where we now start on every new country.
How often a row is re-checked
Every page carries a next check date, ordinarily about ninety days out. Two things pull that date forward: a regulator publishing an amendment, and a reader telling us a rule has moved. Both get logged with their source in the rule changes log, which is also where a row that changed value is recorded rather than quietly overwritten.
If you find a row that is out of date, or an official page we could not reach, write to [email protected]. Corrections are the fastest way this table gets better. The country pages behind these rows start at keep your number abroad.