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 quick summary of my experience.

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, but also viable for a primary phone with light data use. You can choose the carrier network (the current choices are AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon) that works best for your phone and location. This will work best for trying out Tracfone, or as an intermediate step before porting to Google Voice. Another option is to buy a SIM and plan from the Tracfone eBay store. They often have deals on more long-term service plans. I’ve since ported the number to Mint Mobile. Use my referral link to receive $15 in renewal credit.