Still Reachable

Rule card · Philippines

Keep your Globe number active while abroad

Globe disconnects a prepaid SIM 120 days after the balance hits zero, or a year after the last top-up. Its contract also says incoming texts are not activity.

Checked against official pages on September 27, 2026. Rules move; when this one does, it goes on the changelog.

Rule at a glance

prepaid accounts only
If you do nothing
120 days after the balance reaches zero, or a year since the last top-up, and the 120-day clock catches most people first
Cheapest way to hold it
A load top-up or a promo registration, which the contract counts; incoming calls and texts are not counted
Roaming needed to receive codes abroad
Unverified (Neither the contract nor the help pages we read say whether roaming must be on for a message to arrive; check Globe's roaming pages before you travel)
Twelve months away, roughly
One top-up a year at the minimum, in any denomination Globe sells
Deactivation clockdays since the last recharge or use
Day 0Day 45Load Watch warns that the SIM is close to deactivation (selected Prepaid numbers)Day 120Permanently disconnected if the balance has sat at zero

Globe publishes the most specific deactivation clause of the three Philippine networks, and it contains one sentence that should change how you treat the SIM. The clause says which days end the line. The sentence says that the messages you have been relying on were never keeping it alive.

The clause

Globe's prepaid SIM terms list three ways the card dies, and the third is the one that catches people abroad: "The SIM Card shall expire and be permanently disconnected if: (a) The SIM Card remains un-activated and unused until the expiration date indicated on the SIM Pack envelope; or (b) The activated SIM Card has no regular load top-up activity for a period of one (1) year from the date of last regular load top-up; or (c) The activated SIM Card has no regular load top-up activity or promo registration for a period of One Hundred Twenty (120) days from reaching zero regular load balance or promo expiration with zero regular load balance."

Two clocks, two starting points. Clause (b) runs from your last top-up and gives a year. Clause (c) runs from the day the balance hits zero and gives a hundred and twenty days. For anyone whose load has run out, which is the normal state of a SIM left in a drawer, clause (c) is the one that fires first, and it is a full year shorter.

The sentence that matters more

Immediately after the three clauses, the same terms define activity, and the definition is narrower than most people assume: "For purposes of this section, any incoming calls, outgoing calls, texts, and data access or usage as well as zero-rated or emergency outgoing calls and texts are not considered valid activities to keep the SIM Card active."

Read it against the way a number abroad is usually used. A bank sends you a code; the SIM receives it; the account stays in touch with you. Globe counts none of that. What Globe counts is a top-up or a promo registration, and it says so twice: once in the clause, and again in the sentence that excludes everything else.

This is the reason a Globe number can look perfectly healthy from the outside and still be on a hundred-and-twenty-day clock. A card that receives nothing but verification messages has no activity on it at all. The channels that fail first are mapped on why OTP SMS fails abroad.

The warning, if you are on the list

Globe's Load Watch sends a message before the end, and its wording is the clearest publication of the deadline a customer ever sees. The AutoLoadMax FAQ prints the alerts, among them: "Your SIM will soon be deactivated due to zero balance. Pls load before mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm to keep ur SIM active."

Treat the warning as a bonus rather than the plan. The same page states that Load Watch "is available for selected Globe Prepaid numbers", so a number can run out without ever receiving one.

What Globe repeats elsewhere

The troubleshooting page carries the same two intervals in plain prose ("a SIM card will expire if left inactive for one year since the last top-up, or if it reaches zero balance and remains inactive for 120 days without any promo or loading activity") and adds the outcome that makes the clock worth watching: "Once deactivated, expired SIM cards cannot be reactivated." The page's next sentence sends you to a store, which is worth reading as the whole of the remedy: a replacement SIM, not a restored number.

A new SIM is not the same number. The contract says Globe "shall not be held responsible for replacing any permanently disconnected SIM Cards", which is the closest a carrier comes to saying that the digits go back into the pool.

The other two networks run their own clocks, and neither is this one: Smart is the most generous, DITO the least, and the Philippines page sets the three side by side.

Before you fly

  • Note the day your balance reached zero, and count a hundred and twenty.
  • Put a top-up or a promo registration inside that window rather than a received text.
  • If the number is registered and you are keeping it for bank codes, the cheapest arrangement is one load a year, and only if the balance never reaches zero in between.