Set Up Your Phone Before Moving Abroad

Your phone handles your bank, maps, translation, and calls home. Set it up before departure or spend your first week fixing it.

Unlock Your Phone

If you bought your phone through AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, or another carrier, it may be locked. A locked phone won’t accept a foreign SIM card.

Start the unlock request at least two weeks before departure. AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon use different service, payment, and account requirements, so read the current policy for the carrier that sold the phone.

Get an eSIM before you fly

Physical SIM cards are fine. An eSIM can be easier because you can install a travel plan before you board the plane. Airalo, Holafly, Saily, and many destination-country carriers sell them. Coverage, hotspot limits, and activation rules vary, so check the plan for your exact destination before paying.

Not every phone supports eSIM. Check your exact model before departure and plan to buy a physical local SIM if needed.

Keep your US number

Do not cancel your US number until you have checked every account that still uses it. Keep it on a low-cost cellular plan if banks, brokerages, or account-recovery systems need to text it. Google Voice is useful for calls, but it is a VoIP service and some institutions reject VoIP numbers for verification. Google also says not to use a Google Voice number as the recovery number for the Google Account that owns it.

Test inbound texts, Wi-Fi calling, and one real account-recovery flow before you fly. Porting or canceling first and testing later is how a cheap phone-plan change turns into a long support call.