Keeping an American phone number

@seamus452 Hello! I am on the BRAZIL Expat.com forum but added SPAIN because my brother is planning to move there next year.

Your question interested me because I have a Brazilian Phone Number which is almost twice as long as an American one. Fortunately, I am connected by Verizon, and they masked my Brazilian one with an American Phone number. This means that if you dial the American one, they gave me you will reach me in Brazil. The downside is that all the "would you like to donate" and "we will be in your area" callers don't know I am not in the USA and tend to call a lot.

Roddie in Retirement😎

@seamus452

I have a Google Voice number with the App on my iPhone and it works fine in Spain.

I am keeping my US number for now, since I don't live in Spain full time, and just got myself a Spanish number / e-sim from a provider like Movistar. Both phone numbers coexist on my iPhone so it's a very handy solution.

D

I've been using Skype for years, but it was recently discontinued.

I found Numero instead, and it's a pretty good app with Virtual SIM support (if your phone has it). I have UK and USA mobile numbers and they work great, no issues at all with my banking security.

Hi Seamus-

I don't know a lot about Google Voice but a friend who moved from the US to Portugal strongly recommended getting a Voice account prior to moving. She said its the easiest and cheapest way to retain an American phone number. The catch is that you have to sign up for it before you leave the US- once you're in Spain it's too late. I'm planning to move to Spain in October so I thought I'd go ahead and sign up for it this summer. I'm not sure but I think you can even keep your existing phone number on Voice.

Best wishes-

Andrea

Thank you. That is good information.

@gwynj

Thank you. After some research, it seems that the Numero app does not allow one to keep one's current phone number. Did you find that to be the case? Were you assigned a new and different phone number?

@seamus452

My bad. I should have clarified it was a way to keep "a US number" rather than "my current US number".