topic Re: Moving phone number internally in SIM cards & Porting

Moving phone number internally

swearwolf8 — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 12:05:19 GMT

Good afternoon, looking for some help really.

Wife and myself are on EE, have been for years, hers is sim only mine is full contract with phone. Wife wants to upgrade her phone as its falling to bits, and applied to upgrade to a phone plan, but ultimately was unsuccessful when running checks.

I found that I can add another contract/device to my account, so I chose to do that for her. We desperately need to keep her phone number for hospital/doctor reasons and the school for our children.

I was unable to sort this via a PAC code as it says it can only transfer it from another provider. I didn't think it would be an issue and completed the order with intentions of just asking for the number to transfer afterwards.

Live chat explained this isn't possible and her account needs to be merged with mine and her sim downgraded which will take around 35 days all in, 72 hours of which to merge accounts, the rest to downgrade the sim, all of which just to change the number to her current.

I guess my question is

1: Can I cancel the new order, merge the account (3 days) then reorder as an upgrade on her number? Will that work?

or 2: Is there a faster way to change the number?

Being both EE, I really thought it would be much easier than this

Re: Moving phone number internally

XRaySpeX — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 12:13:18 GMT

EE won't port nos. between its contracts. So you need to 1st port your existing no. to another network's PAYG using a PAC from EE & then in reverse port it back to your new contract. This will also have the effect of cancelling your old contract.

You could alternatively move your old contract to PAYG with 30 days notice & then ask EE to transfer the no to your new contract.

Re: Moving phone number internally

swearwolf8 — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 12:18:46 GMT

Hi, thanks for the super fast reply!

So if I got hold of a random PAYG sim from another provider, can I immediately port it to that? (as in, does it work same day?) and then contact EE to change it to my wifes new sim when it arrives?

Thanks again

Re: Moving phone number internally

XRaySpeX — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 12:21:56 GMT

The other network may put a restriction on how long you can port it away.

Re: Moving phone number internally

swearwolf8 — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 12:29:13 GMT

Thank you - this is greatly helpful

If anyone knows of a network to avoid doing this please let me know LOL

Re: Moving phone number internally

bristolian — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 16:53:32 GMT

@swearwolf8 wrote:
Wife and myself are on EE, have been for years, hers is sim only mine is full contract with phone. Wife wants to upgrade her phone as its falling to bits, and applied to upgrade to a phone plan, but ultimately was unsuccessful when running checks.

Buy your wife's new phone SIM-free/outright? If you do so via EE's SIM-free online shop, then paying by monthly instalments might also be an option.