By
Adam Simmons
· Last checked
August 2026
In principle, you take the number with you: phone numbers are transferable between providers, and the right to move one does not belong to the company billing you for it.
In practice, transferring a number requires the losing provider to release it, and that is where this goes wrong. Practitioners describe being told at signup that moving the number later would be simple, then finding it was not. One cancelled a service that had proved unreliable and was left with the number already printed on business cards she had handed out. Another ported a number successfully and then stopped receiving text messages for days, with no explanation and no way to get one. Someone else's number was simply discontinued.
None of those people did anything wrong. They chose a provider, published the number everywhere a practice publishes a number, and then discovered that the most load-bearing asset in their practice was held by a company with no particular obligation to them.
The rules are set by the telecom regulator rather than by vendors, and two of them are worth knowing before you sign anything.
Letting go is not optional for the provider you are leaving. For internet-based phone service, providers "will continue to be required to port out telephone numbers, assigned from both inside and outside their operating territory, to other VoIP service providers or to other telecommunications service providers" — while a number "may be ported in at a VoIP service provider's discretion" (Telecom Decision CRTC 2008-11, ¶17 and ¶22). The company you are leaving has to release your number. The company you are joining does not have to accept it, and that asymmetry explains more failed transfers than anything a vendor will tell you.
Don't cancel first. The regulator's consumer guidance is blunt about it: "do not cancel your service before you switch to the new provider", and you "do not need to provide 30 days notice before cancelling" (CRTC). Cancelling in frustration is the move that turns a difficult transfer into a lost number.
If a provider still won't move, the national complaints body for telecom services takes complaints from individuals and from small businesses — defined there as telecom invoices of no more than $2,500 a month, which nearly every solo practice is. It can require a provider to explain or apologise, to do or stop doing something, or to pay compensation, capped at $5,000 and compensatory rather than punitive (CCTS Procedural Code). Privacy sits expressly outside its scope, so a complaint about how a provider handled client information is a different route.
In principle, you take the number with you: phone numbers are transferable between providers, and the right to move one does not belong to the company billing you for it.
In practice, transferring a number requires the losing provider to release it, and that is where this goes wrong. Practitioners describe being told at signup that moving the number later would be simple, then finding it was not. One cancelled a service that had proved unreliable and was left with the number already printed on business cards she had handed out. Another ported a number successfully and then stopped receiving text messages for days, with no explanation and no way to get one. Someone else's number was simply discontinued.
None of those people did anything wrong. They chose a provider, published the number everywhere a practice publishes a number, and then discovered that the most load-bearing asset in their practice was held by a company with no particular obligation to them.
The rules are set by the telecom regulator rather than by vendors, and two of them are worth knowing before you sign anything.
Letting go is not optional for the provider you are leaving. For internet-based phone service, providers "will continue to be required to port out telephone numbers, assigned from both inside and outside their operating territory, to other VoIP service providers or to other telecommunications service providers" — while a number "may be ported in at a VoIP service provider's discretion" (Telecom Decision CRTC 2008-11, ¶17 and ¶22). The company you are leaving has to release your number. The company you are joining does not have to accept it, and that asymmetry explains more failed transfers than anything a vendor will tell you.
Don't cancel first. The regulator's consumer guidance is blunt about it: "do not cancel your service before you switch to the new provider", and you "do not need to provide 30 days notice before cancelling" (CRTC). Cancelling in frustration is the move that turns a difficult transfer into a lost number.
If a provider still won't move, the national complaints body for telecom services takes complaints from individuals and from small businesses — defined there as telecom invoices of no more than $2,500 a month, which nearly every solo practice is. It can require a provider to explain or apologise, to do or stop doing something, or to pay compensation, capped at $5,000 and compensatory rather than punitive (CCTS Procedural Code). Privacy sits expressly outside its scope, so a complaint about how a provider handled client information is a different route.
Why this matters more for a practice line than for anything else
Your number is not a setting. It is on your directory listings, in your insurers' records, on every intake form, on referral letters, in the phone of every client you have ever had, and in the phone of every professional who might send you one. It is the only piece of infrastructure in a solo practice that cannot be swapped out over a weekend.
That is what makes it the thing to be careful about at signup, when you have leverage, rather than at cancellation, when you have none.
What to ask before you sign up
Ask in writing, and keep the answer.
Will you release this number to another provider on request, without conditions? Not "can it be ported" — every vendor says yes to that. Ask whether they will, and what would make them refuse.
What do I need to have on file to start a transfer? Usually an account number and some form of PIN or authorisation code. Find out what yours are now and write them down somewhere that is not inside the vendor's own product.
What happens to the number if I stop paying? There is often a window after which the number is released back into the general pool and is gone permanently. The length of that window is the difference between a billing mishap and losing your practice's number.
Can the account be frozen without notice, and for what? Payment failures, suspected spam behaviour, a policy change.
How do I reach a human when a transfer is in progress? Number transfers are the single most likely thing to need one.
If a vendor will not answer these plainly before taking your money, that is the answer.
What to do so it never becomes a catastrophe
Never let one number be the only route in. Publish an email address or a booking link alongside it, everywhere. A dead number with a live web form is a bad week. A dead number and nothing else is a practice that has vanished.
Keep your own copy of your contacts. Client names and numbers should exist somewhere you control, not only inside a vendor's inbox. Export them, on a schedule, and store the export the way you store anything else with client information in it.
Keep the port credentials current. Account number, authorisation code, the exact name and address the account is registered under — a transfer fails on a mismatched address more often than anything else.
Print carefully. Business cards and printed materials are where an unrecoverable number hurts most, because they are already out in the world. That is a small argument for putting a website on printed material and letting the website carry the number.
If it has already happened
Start the transfer immediately, even if the service is broken and even if you are in a billing dispute. Time matters: once a number has been released to the general pool it is usually not recoverable, and a transfer request in flight is the thing most likely to stop that.
While it runs, change the number on the surfaces you control — website, directories, signature — to a working one, and send a written notice to every current client with the new number and a date. Then keep a record of what you asked the vendor and when, because a stalled transfer is escalated with dates, not with adjectives.
The uncomfortable part
Everything above applies to any provider, including one you are currently considering. A company that sells you a practice number is holding something that gets more valuable to them the longer you keep it, and that is a structural incentive, not a question of character.
The only real protection is a commitment to release the number, given in writing before you sign up, plus a second way for people to reach you. Ask for both from whoever you choose.
About Rivet
Rivet is a Canadian practice line built for therapists — a separate number for calls, texts and voicemail, with video sessions and clinical tools in the same place. Your data stays in Canada, and transcription runs on Rivet's own hardware rather than a third-party AI service.
One plan, $65 CAD a month, everything included. Fourteen-day trial, no card.