Business Number Porting in Australia: Keeping Your Numbers

The short version

You can keep your business numbers when you change provider. Australian rules require the current provider to release local, 13, 1300, 1800 and mobile numbers when asked, and it can’t refuse or delay because there’s money owing.

What makes a port quick or slow is almost entirely preparation:

• The new provider lodges the port, with an authorisation you sign. You don’t ask the old provider to release anything.
• Your details must match the old provider’s records exactly: the account number, the account holder name and the address on the account.
• Nothing gets cancelled first. A disconnected number can’t be ported, and you lose your rights to it.

Moving office is a separate question. Mobile and 13, 1300 and 1800 numbers move with the business. A local landline number belongs to a call-charging area, so whether you can keep it depends on where you’re moving and who your new provider is.

Which numbers can you keep?

The codes are published by the Australian Telecommunications Alliance, formerly Communications Alliance. The underlying right to port comes from the Telecommunications Numbering Plan 2025, which requires the losing provider to port a number when asked.

How a port works

1. You choose the new provider and give it the details of each number and the account it sits on.
2. You sign a customer authorisation. For local and inbound numbers it can’t be more than 90 days old when the port is lodged, and for mobiles the limit is 60 days. If a project stalls, expect to sign again.
3. The new provider lodges the request with the old provider.
4. The old provider validates it against its records and accepts or rejects it.
5. The port is scheduled and completes. Calls keep reaching the old provider until that moment, then arrive on the new service.

ACMA tells new providers to warn customers not to disconnect their service, and the codes put the job of initiating the port on the new provider. If the old provider tells you to “release” your numbers, point it to the new provider.

Porting local numbers

Local number ports fall into two categories:

• Category A is a simple service: one number on one line. It’s automated, and the industry code targets activation within 30 minutes once the cutover is instructed. ACMA’s guidance is that individual local number ports generally complete within 8 to 15 days.
• Category C covers complex services: number ranges, indial blocks, hunt groups and multi-line services. These are coordinated manually. The code targets completion of 80% within 15 business days, 90% within 20 and 99% within 30, and notes that small-business cutovers generally happen in under 20 business days.

Ports run in standard hours, 8 am to 5 pm on business days. After-hours porting happens only if the providers agree, so don’t plan a weekend cutover without confirming it.

If your numbers are grouped, for example 20 numbers in a hunt group, the code treats them as all or nothing: every number on that product ports together. If you only want to take some of them, ask the old provider to split them off before the port.

Porting a 1300, 1800 or 13 number

Inbound numbers port under their own code, C657. The old provider has two business days to accept or reject the request. Once the new provider gives the go-ahead, the code targets completion of 95% of ports within two hours.

The step businesses miss is that the number moves, but its routing doesn’t. A 1300 or 1800 number is really a pointer to an answer point: your main line, a mobile, a call centre or a cloud phone queue. The code is explicit that porting moves the number “but not any service or features associated with” it. Time-of-day routing, state-based routing and recorded messages have to be set up again with the new provider before the port goes ahead, or calls will arrive with nowhere to go.

Two more checks:

• Which account is it on? Inbound numbers are often billed on a separate account from the main lines, sometimes with a different provider altogether. That account’s number and holder details go on the port request.
• Is it a smartnumber? Smartnumbers are premium 13, 1300 and 1800 numbers bought through ACMA’s numbering system. The holder keeps rights of use while the number is connected and for three years after the last service ends, and the Numbering Plan says a provider must not hinder the porting of a smartnumber.

For an ordinary 1300 number, you hold the right to use it while it’s connected. ACMA’s guidance is that if your service is disconnected, you no longer have rights to the number. That’s the reason to never cancel first.

Porting mobile numbers

Mobile ports are the quickest. The code targets 90% within three standard hours of operation and 99% within two business days.

Since 2020, an industry standard requires the new provider to confirm the person requesting a mobile port has the phone, usually with an SMS code or a call-back, or to check ID if the phone isn’t available. Large business customers can use a nominated authorised representative instead. For business mobiles, have the account number from the current provider ready, and make sure whoever will receive the code is reachable on the day.

Many cloud phone platforms don’t host mobile numbers at all. Staff often keep their mobile plans and install the cloud phone app instead. Check what the new provider accepts before planning a mobile port.

What the new provider needs from you

Gather these from the current provider’s documents, not from memory:

• A recent bill for every account the numbers sit on
• The account number for each account
• The account holder name and address exactly as the provider holds them. If the business has changed its trading name, been restructured or moved, the old records probably still show the old details.
• Any PIN or password on the account
• A complete list of numbers: main lines, direct lines, ranges written as ranges, 1300 and 1800 numbers, fax numbers, and lines serving alarms, lifts and EFTPOS terminals

Some lines shouldn’t be ported at all. Monitored alarms, lift phones and some payment terminals need their own decision with the device provider. Switching your business phones to 8x8 covers how to handle them.

Why ports get rejected

Under the codes, the old provider can reject a port when:

• the account details don’t match its records
• the authorisation is more than 90 days old
• the number isn’t active on that account, or has been disconnected or is pending disconnection
• there’s a pending order on the service, or another port is already in progress
• a simple port has been lodged for what is really a complex service
• a group of numbers has been split in a way the rules don’t allow

Unpaid debt isn’t on the list. ACMA states that the losing provider can’t refuse or delay a port because the customer owes money, though final bills remain payable.

Each rejection means correcting and resubmitting, which restarts the timeline. Checking a recent bill before lodging is the single most effective way to avoid delays.

Moving office: can you keep a local number?

Mobile and 13, 1300 and 1800 numbers aren’t tied to a location, so an office move doesn’t affect them. Local numbers are different.

Under the Numbering Plan, a geographic number belongs to a call-charging area. It can be used for a service that terminates in that area, or for a service where calls are charged as if they terminated there. A provider that offers a local number which may not terminate in its area has to tell the customer in writing that calls will be charged as if the customer were in the area, and that the customer may not be able to port the number to another provider later.

In practice:

• Moving within the same area: you can usually keep the number with your current provider, or port it to a new one.
• Moving to an area served by a different exchange on a traditional line: Telstra’s small business guidance, for example, is that this means a new number, with call redirection available for a fee.
• Moving onto cloud phones: many cloud providers will keep a local number when the office moves, because the number isn’t tied to a copper line. Some will port in an out-of-area number. ACMA’s advice is to check with the new provider, because it’s their choice, not a right.

If the business relies on a local number that customers know, raise it at the start of the move, not the week before.

Moving office without losing the phones

An office move combines a port, a new internet service and sometimes a new phone platform. Sequence them:

1. Order internet for the new site early. Cloud phones need it, and a new tenancy can take weeks to connect. Business internet lead times for a new tenancy covers what to expect.
2. Settle the phone platform and number plan. Decide which numbers move, which change, and whether any local number needs an out-of-area arrangement.
3. Lodge the ports early, keeping the old services active until they complete.
4. Update the emergency address. Providers must record the service address in the Integrated Public Number Database, and that’s what Triple Zero receives. With cloud phones the address must be the place where the phones actually are, so it needs updating when you move.
5. Test every number from outside the business once it arrives.

Switching provider without the surprises

Porting moves the numbers, but it doesn’t settle the rest of the account. Contract terms, early termination fees, equipment rental, internet services and anything you didn’t port may keep billing. Read the contract before you switch, and close only what should close once every number has arrived.

The same applies whichever provider you’re leaving, including a cloud phone provider. The numbers can always come with you. The contract is a separate conversation.

Getting help with a port or an office move

We handle porting as part of moving businesses onto cloud phone systems, and plan phones, internet and cabling together for office relocations. If you’re changing provider or moving office in Melbourne or Victoria, get in touch with a recent bill for each account and your list of numbers, and we’ll work out what can move, what should stay, and the order to do it in.