How to Move Your Phone Service To France

How to Keep Your US Number When You Move Abroad
(Without Losing It — or Yourself)

I was running through the Bronx two days before the flight, trying to unlock my phone in the back of a Duane Reade. No signal, no patience. I needed to port my number, cancel my plan, print a boarding pass, and find a second suitcase because I still hadn’t packed my boots. Somewhere between the Metro-North and the 4 train, I almost let the number go.

Twenty-five years of doctor’s offices, exes, two-step verifications, and old friends who still text like nothing’s changed. I didn’t want a new number. I didn’t want to explain.

So here’s what worked:

Google Voice.
Not perfect. Still, it’s the only thing that did what I needed: kept my US number alive while I started over in another country. $20 to port your number in, and after that, it’s basically free. You can call and text US numbers from a laptop or the app, as long as you’ve got Wi-Fi. And you can still get those dumb verification codes your bank insists on texting.

Everything else — Skype, Viber, Signal, those random apps expats swear by on Reddit — was half a solution. I needed something I could forget about. Something that just worked.

For the rest of your phone life:

Airalo
eSIMs for wherever you land. Good for travel, especially if you’re still bouncing between countries. Just remember to turn off roaming on your old SIM or your phone will quietly rob you. (Ask me how I know.)

Orange
Once you’ve landed and want a real French number, Orange Holiday gets you a month of data without paperwork. We used it till we got tired of topping up and switched to a proper plan. Still, it’s one of the less miserable French telecom setups.

This isn’t an ad. I just lost too many hours googling solutions when I should’ve been saying goodbye. Save yourself that spiral. Port the number. Move on.

And yeah — back up your photos. You’re going to forget your iCloud password. Trust me.

Other services available

…but I haven’t tested this. With security and de-Googling a concern now, these are some of the first I’ll look into:

Good services

1. Sonetel — Virtual number + call forwarding anywhere worldwide. They explicitly say you can forward “incoming calls … anywhere on the planet”.
   Link: Sonetel Call Forwarding Sonetel+1
2. KoalaCalling — Offers U.S. and other virtual numbers which forward to any mobile/landline/PBX anywhere.
   Link: KoalaCalling Global Call Forwarding
3. Global Call Forwarding — More business‑oriented, but they provide virtual/local numbers + international forwarding in 160+ countries. Global Call Forwarding