Rule card · Mexico

Keep your Telcel number active while abroad

Telcel Amigo: 119 days of incoming calls and texts from the day after expiry, then 246 days suspended. Sixty seconds of received calls restart the 119.

Checked against official pages on September 28, 2026. Rules move; when this one does, it goes on the changelog.

Rule at a glance

prepaid accounts only

If you do nothing: 119 days of incoming calls and texts starting the day after the Amigo balance or package expires, then 246 days fully suspended, then the line is deleted
Cheapest way to hold it: A Saldo Amigo recharge or an Amigo package during the incoming phase or the inactive phase
Roaming needed to receive codes abroad: Unverified (The policy says what the line can receive during the incoming phase. Whether that reach extends outside Mexico is not in the policy)
Twelve months away, roughly: A Saldo Amigo recharge or an Amigo package before the line is deleted

Deactivation clockdays after the Amigo balance or package expires. The 119-day incoming phase starts the next day, so it is days 1 through 119. The 246-day suspension starts the day after that phase ends, days 120 through 365. Day 365 assumes the incoming phase was not restarted. Received calls totaling 60 seconds send the line back to the start of those 119 days and move the deletion with them. Five cooling days begin after the line is already deleted. Frozen balance is 365 days from the original expiry, and those calls do not restart it.

Telcel's Amigo lifecycle is four phases long, and the phase that still accepts incoming texts is the second one. The page labels itself "Actualización: 2024" and says it covers every Amigo line, kit or chip, whichever charging scheme is on it.

Incoming, for 119 days

The policy starts the second phase the day after the balance ends: "Esta Fase tiene una duración de 119 (ciento diecinueve) días naturales, la cual comienza al día siguiente de que haya expirado la vigencia del Saldo Amigo o Paquete adquirido." One hundred and nineteen days, beginning the day after the Amigo balance or package expires.

What still works is named in the next sentence of the policy: "Durante esta Fase el usuario sólo podrá recibir llamadas y mensajes de texto (SMS), sin posibilidad de originar ningún tipo de tráfico o comunicación saliente de voz, datos o SMS." Received calls and received texts, and nothing outgoing, including outgoing texts and data. Promotional balance, including Saldo de Regalo, is lost at the start of this phase.

What restarts those 119 days

The same paragraph of the policy gives the restart, and it is a call total, not a message: "en caso de que el usuario en Fase de Comunicación Entrante reciba una o varias llamadas cuya duración acumulada sea igual o mayor a 60 segundos, será posicionado nuevamente al inicio de la duración de dicha Fase." One or several received calls, adding up to 60 seconds, put the line back at the start of the incoming phase. The sentence that allows texts during the phase is not this sentence. A verification text is inside the window. On the wording here, it is not what restarts the window.

Movistar's contract counts a text, in either direction, as traffic that keeps the line active. Telcel's restart, in the sentence above, is received calls of 60 seconds.

Then 246 days with nothing, then deletion

Once the 119 days have run, the policy opens a second wait: "la línea pasará a la Fase de Inactividad por un periodo de 246 (doscientos cuarenta y seis) días naturales que comenzarán a partir del día siguiente a aquel en que haya concluido la Fase de Comunicación Entrante." Two hundred and forty-six days, starting the day after the incoming phase ends. During them, "el usuario no podrá originar ni recibir ningún tipo de tráfico o comunicación saliente o entrante de voz, SMS o datos." No voice, no texts, no data, in either direction. A code cannot land in this phase, on this wording.

At the end of those 246 days with no Saldo Amigo recharge and no Amigo package, the system deletes the line's identification data. After that, the policy puts abandoned lines into cooling "con duración de 5 (cinco) días naturales", so they show no activity before they can be assigned again. The number is already deleted when cooling starts. The drawing's day 365 is arithmetic from the page's own lengths, 119 and then 246, on the assumption that the 60-second calls did not restart the first phase.

Frozen balance, counted from the expiry itself

The money left over is a third count, and it does not follow the restart. The same policy freezes it at the start of the incoming phase: "el remanente, en caso de que lo hubiera, quedará congelado", "por un plazo de 365 (trescientos sesenta y cinco) días contados a partir de la fecha de su expiración original". Three hundred and sixty-five days from the original expiry date. A new Saldo Amigo recharge or an Amigo package during that period, whether the line is in the incoming phase or the inactive phase, returns it to active and brings the frozen Amigo balance back.

The policy does not say that the 60 seconds of received calls extend this 365. Those calls move the deletion. The frozen-balance period stays tied to the original expiry.

Before you fly

Write down the expiry date. The 119 days start the next day, not on the expiry itself.
If the number is holding a bank account, the incoming phase is the window in which texts still arrive. The inactive phase blocks them.
Sixty seconds of received calls restart the incoming phase. Plan on a call, not on the arrival of a code, if you need the restart.
A Saldo Amigo recharge or an Amigo package during either wait returns the line to active and restores frozen Amigo balance, inside the 365 days counted from the original expiry. The balance year this clock sits under is on the Mexico page.