Keep your Chinese phone number active while abroad

In China, keeping a number through a long absence is something you arrange: the service is called 停机保号, you apply for it, and you keep paying for it. At the far end of the story there is a freeze: after a number is canceled, it is held back from reuse before anyone else can have it, and on the two carriers whose contracts we could read, that hold is at least ninety days.

The service you have to ask for

The word is 停机保号, suspend-and-hold. China Mobile describes it as a service for "客户因某种原因，需暂停使用移动电话号码，保留号码使用权" (a customer who for some reason needs to stop using a mobile number while keeping the right to use it). China Telecom's Shanghai agreement names the same service. The fee and any maximum are provincial. China Unicom's pages did not answer the clients we tried, so this page does not state a Unicom price.

That structure is the first thing to understand after moving from an Indian number, because the two countries run opposite defaults: in India the regulation stops a carrier deactivating a number nobody is using, while in China the holding runs through a service you requested.

The ninety-day freeze, and where it comes from

The government page we could read is a national standard, and the freeze sentence on it sits in the fixed-line appendix. Order No. 36 of the Ministry of Information Industry, the 电信服务规范 (Telecommunications Service Standard) in force since 20 April 2005, is that page. For fixed-line numbers it reads "电话号码冻结时限最短为90日" (the freeze period for a telephone number is a minimum of 90 days), defined as "该号码注销后至重新启用所需要的时间" (the time from cancellation of the number to its being put back into service).

The mobile appendix of the same standard carries the parallel clause, and we could not find it on a government page: the MIIT page we read reproduces the fixed-line appendix in full and stops there. What we can show for mobile is stronger than a citation anyway, because two carriers write the ninety days into their own contracts. China Mobile's service contract provides that "乙方对终止通信服务的电话号码应至少冻结 90 日后，方可重新投入使用" (a number whose service has been terminated must be frozen for at least 90 days before it can be put back into use), and China Telecom's Shanghai agreement uses the same figure for the same purpose.

On the two contracts we could read, the figure is a minimum: the wording is 至少, at least. Those pages do not set a maximum freeze, and they do not speak for China Unicom.

What the carriers add

The details differ by province, because China administers telecom regionally. Our cards record which province each fact came from, so a Beijing contract is not read as a national mobile rule:

• China Mobile publishes a product page with the hold fee and, unusually, an explicit statement about whether a maximum hold period exists.
• China Telecom publishes a service agreement with the ninety-day freeze and the payment terms, but the hold fee itself sits on provincial pages that refused every client we tried.
• China Unicom did not answer any client we tried. Its card records those attempts and does not copy the fixed-line freeze onto a Unicom number.

How this differs from the Indian rules

If you are comparing the two countries you have lived in, the shape of the protection is not the same thing at all:

	India	China
What holds the number	A regulation stops deactivation while a small balance sits on the account	A service you apply for and pay for monthly
The cited floor	90 days of silence, and no deactivation while more than 20 rupees sits in the account	At least 90 days after cancellation, on the Beijing Mobile contract and the Shanghai Telecom agreement. The mobile appendix was not on the government page we opened
Where the details live	The regulator's consolidated regulations	The carrier's provincial product page and service contract

The Indian side is on the India page. Both are collected, with dates, on all carriers.

Before you fly

• Apply for 停机保号 before you leave. It is not automatic, and it is much harder to arrange from abroad.
• Keep the account clear of arrears: on China Mobile's published terms the cancellation clock is triggered by being suspended and behind on payment, not by silence alone.
• Budget the hold fee for the length of your stay, and confirm the maximum period in your province rather than assuming the twenty-four months that circulate online.
• Every figure on the cards is dated, and every change is logged in the rule changes log.