Porting out a Skype Number

Number portability is not a new thing, but what about porting out a Skype Number? This is an optional (paid) feature available to personal Skype accounts that makes it possible to receive telephone calls via the Skype app. I recently ported out my Skype Number successfully so here’s a summary of how I did it.

I think Skype is great but I haven’t been using it much recently, so I decided I ought to stop paying $14/quarter to maintain a Skype Number. However, I didn’t want to lose the number, so I looked into porting it out. Surprisingly little information is available on the web about porting out a Skype Number. One of the top results on Google, How do I port my Skype Number to another company?, is an official FAQ but doesn’t go into hardly any detail. I also found several forum threads and Reddit posts, but they too lacked detail.

When porting out a number the new provider will ask for several pieces of information, in particular the account number and PIN. I couldn’t find these in my Skype profile or referenced in Skype documentation. Despite the lack of concrete details I decided to try porting out my Skype Number to another service provider. There are many low-cost options, such as prepaid, VoIP (e.g. Ooma Telo), and Google Voice. I’ve previously written about such options. Note that it may not be possible to transfer a Skype Number directly to a personal Google Voice account since the number must be tied to either a mobile phone or another Google account (see Port or transfer your personal number).

I chose Tracfone, a prepaid mobile provider, which will ensure I can transfer to Google Voice later (I ported a Tracfone number to a Google Voice account a few months so I am certain it works). To transfer a number to Tracfone the following is required:

  • Current service provider type (i.e. landline or mobile)
  • Current service provider name
  • Name on the account
  • Billing address
  • Account number
  • PIN

For the provider type I chose “mobile”, and for name “other” since Skype was not one of the available choices. The name and billing address are self-explanatory, but I did double-check that they were correct in my Skype profile. For account number and PIN, I put my 10 digit Skype Number and “0000”, respectively. These were recommendations I found in a forum post. After inputting the details to the best of my knowledge I submitted the request and waited. Surprisingly enough, the transfer request completed within a few hours without a hitch! Calls to the number now go to my mobile phone instead of Skype.

Tracfone is a good low-cost prepaid mobile provider, perfect for a spare phone, or as an intermediate step before porting to Google Voice. The Tracfone eBay store is a good place to buy a SIM with a plan.

I’ve since ported the number to Mint Mobile. The details above should be enough to port a Skype number to Mint. Use my referral link to receive $15 in renewal credit.

Please share your results or tips in the comments!

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7 Responses to Porting out a Skype Number

  1. Andy says:

    Thanks. The information is helpful. I have one question regarding Skype Name, should that be my real name that I use for billing, or should it be the Skype ID?

  2. Lily says:

    Hi,
    I tried to port my skype number to tracfone as you suggested. The tracfone asks the zipcode of current provide. What is skype’s zipcode.

    Do you know?

  3. Jimmy says:

    Skype is shutting down in a couple months 🙁
    Any recommendations on where to port a US number? In particular, a service which allows you to be outside the US for > 90 days a year (unlike Google Fi and Google Voice).

  4. KC says:

    I just wanted to thank you for writing this article and sharing your experience. MS sent notices to everyone with a Skype number that the service is ending on May 5, 2025 so you’ll likely get a spike of traffic.
    Seems likely I’ll be moving to Zoom. Initially I thought that I’d go with Google Voice, but moving first to a mobile and then to Google Voice seems unnecessarily complex. I’m a fan of simplicity.

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