By
Adam Simmons
· Last checked
August 2026
Plan for it to take longer than you are told, and do not schedule anything around the date you are given.
That is not cynicism about providers. It is the structure of the thing: a transfer involves at least two companies, one of which has no commercial interest in it happening quickly, and the request can be rejected and resubmitted more than once. Each rejection restarts the wait.
Some of it is regulated. The CRTC set the service interval for a wireless-to-wireless simple port at "2.5 business hours", and for simple intermodal porting — landline to mobile, or the reverse — at "two business days" (Telecom Decision CRTC 2005-72, ¶92 and ¶86). Its consumer page says the same thing in plainer words: "For mobile phones, it can take a few hours. For landline to mobile or mobile to landline, it typically takes up to 2 business days" (CRTC).
Read those numbers for what they are. They are the transfer window for a simple port of a particular type — not the elapsed time from filling in a form to a working number, and not a promise about a request that gets rejected and resubmitted. There is no published figure at all for a landline moving to another landline.
What you can plan around is the shape of it. There is a submission, a period where nothing visible happens, possibly a rejection and a resubmission, then a cutover, then a short unstable window where calls work and texts don't or the other way round. Practitioners routinely report that last window and are routinely surprised by it — one described receiving no text messages at all for two days after a port and having no idea whether it was broken or still settling.
Plan for it to take longer than you are told, and do not schedule anything around the date you are given.
That is not cynicism about providers. It is the structure of the thing: a transfer involves at least two companies, one of which has no commercial interest in it happening quickly, and the request can be rejected and resubmitted more than once. Each rejection restarts the wait.
Some of it is regulated. The CRTC set the service interval for a wireless-to-wireless simple port at "2.5 business hours", and for simple intermodal porting — landline to mobile, or the reverse — at "two business days" (Telecom Decision CRTC 2005-72, ¶92 and ¶86). Its consumer page says the same thing in plainer words: "For mobile phones, it can take a few hours. For landline to mobile or mobile to landline, it typically takes up to 2 business days" (CRTC).
Read those numbers for what they are. They are the transfer window for a simple port of a particular type — not the elapsed time from filling in a form to a working number, and not a promise about a request that gets rejected and resubmitted. There is no published figure at all for a landline moving to another landline.
What you can plan around is the shape of it. There is a submission, a period where nothing visible happens, possibly a rejection and a resubmission, then a cutover, then a short unstable window where calls work and texts don't or the other way round. Practitioners routinely report that last window and are routinely surprised by it — one described receiving no text messages at all for two days after a port and having no idea whether it was broken or still settling.
What decides how long it takes
Almost entirely paperwork, and almost none of it technical.
Whether your details match. The name, address and account number on the request have to match what the current provider has on file — not what is true today, what is recorded. A married name, a former practice name, a moved office, an account originally opened by a partner: each of these is a rejection and another wait.
Whether you have the right account number and PIN. Some providers issue a separate transfer PIN. Not having it is the most avoidable delay in the list.
What kind of number it is. A mobile number, a landline, and a number that only ever existed on an internet-based service are not equivalent here. The regulated intervals above attach to particular combinations, and for internet-based services the CRTC left the receiving provider free to decline the number altogether — numbers "may be ported in at a VoIP service provider's discretion" (Telecom Decision CRTC 2008-11, ¶22). Ask the new provider whether they will take yours before you count on a date.
Whether anything is wrong with the account. An unpaid balance, a recent change to the account, or a transfer already in progress can hold it.
Who you are transferring away from. Some providers process these routinely. Others are, in the words of more than one reviewer, difficult to get a straight answer from at all.
What is actually happening during the wait
Almost nothing you can see, which is the hardest part.
You will not get progress updates on most of it. The absence of news during this period is not evidence of a problem, and calling to check tends to produce reassurance rather than information.
The one thing worth watching for is a rejection notice, which usually arrives by email and is easy to mistake for routine correspondence. Read those. A rejection is fixable and normal; a rejection you ignore for two weeks is two weeks added.
What to do while it is in flight
Treat the number as not-yet-yours until it demonstrably is.
Don't print anything. Cards, brochures, a sign — none of it until the number is live on the new service.
Don't update your public surfaces. The number is not changing from a client's point of view, so there is nothing to update.
Don't tell clients. From their side nothing is happening. A pre-emptive message only creates a second message if the date slips.
Don't cancel the old service. This is the one that costs you the number. Cancel after the transfer is confirmed working, not before, not "to be tidy".
Do keep a fallback channel obvious. An email address on your website is enough to catch anyone who cannot get through during an unstable hour.
When should I start worrying?
When the date you were given passes without a rejection notice and without a cutover, and a direct question to the new provider produces a non-answer.
At that point the useful moves are, in order:
Ask the new provider, in writing, for the current status and any rejection reasons received. In writing matters — it creates something to refer back to.
Independently check with the current provider that the account is open, in good standing, and not blocked for transfers.
Compare the details on the request against a current bill from the old provider, line by line. Most stalls are one wrong character.
If the answer keeps being that there is nothing to be done, that is a different situation, and it has its own page.
The uncomfortable part
Practitioners have been on the wrong end of this. One was told at signup that moving the number away later would be simple, then could not do it. Another cancelled a service that had not worked out and was left holding business cards printed with a number she no longer controlled.
The lesson those stories teach is not about timelines. It is that the time to find out whether you can leave with your number is before you arrive — a provider that will not answer that question plainly in writing is telling you something.
The short version
Nobody can give you a reliable date, because the process runs through a company that is losing you. Get the account details exactly right, expect a rejection or two, watch for the notices, change nothing public until the number is live, and never cancel the old service to hurry it along.
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