A waiver issued Monday by the FCC means you’ll have to wait longer or pay off your phone’s balance earlier to take a phone purchased from Verizon to another carrier.
The change to the FCC’s handset-unlocking rules, which had required Verizon to unlock phones it sold after 60 days, is “a more uniform approach” that ends a Verizon-specific regulation, the agency says. Verizon accepted this restriction as a condition for it buying $9.4 billion worth of analog-TV spectrum in 2007. It then agreed to extend that policy when the FCC approved its purchase of prepaid service Tracfone in 2021.
As a result, Verizon’s phone-unlocking policy (at least as of Monday afternoon) says it will automatically unlock phones it sells to postpaid or prepaid customers 60 days after purchase “unless the device is deemed stolen or purchased fraudulently.”
In May, however, Verizon asked to be let out of that regulatory box. In a letter to the commission, the company said that the 60-day unlocking timeline made it too easy for fraudsters to fence phones: “Verizon estimates that it lost 784,703 devices to fraud in 2023, costing it hundreds of millions of dollars annually.”
Critics questioned that logic; Public Knowledge, for example, observed in a letter that carriers with longer unlock periods “also report high rates of device fraud and trafficking.” The Washington-based nonprofit suggested that the real issue is carriers creating an “arbitrage opportunity created by offering expensive devices at a steep discount in exchange for a service commitment, often without adequate identity verification.”
Individual customers can do this by buying a phone at a discounted price from one of Verizon’s prepaid brands so they can move it to another carrier two months later. In December, Kansas resident Patrick Roach successfully sued Verizon to exercise that right.
The FCC, however, agreed with Verizon in a 16-page order that also cited letters of support from law-enforcement organizations and the attorneys general of Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Utah, and West Virginia.
“We find this waiver to be warranted because it will allow Verizon to take action against the substantial handset fraud, including device theft and handset trafficking, that uniquely impacts its business today and that significantly spiked following Verizon’s acquisition of TracFone in 2021,” the order says.
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It does not impose a new unlocking timeline on Verizon, instead noting the carrier’s commitment to follow the wireless trade group CTIA’s Consumer Code for Wireless Service.
The unlocking provisions require carriers to unlock phones on postpaid subscriptions once customers pay off outstanding balances on phone purchases; unlock phones sold to prepaid users “no later than one year after initial activation, consistent with reasonable time, payment or usage requirements”; clearly disclose these rules; notify customers when their phones are eligible for unlocking; and unlock phones early for military personnel being deployed elsewhere.
Verizon’s two chief competitors differ in their implementations of the CTIA policy: While both AT&T and T-Mobile require phones sold to postpaid users be fully paid off, AT&T will unlock prepaid phones six months after activation while T-Mobile requires prepaid customers to either wait one year or make at least $100 in service refills on the prepaid line.
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As long as your phone is locked, you not only can’t take it to another carrier but also can’t augment your service by adding an eSIM from another service, such as for Starlink roaming in rural areas or for cheap prepaid data overseas.
As of late Monday afternoon, Verizon had not announced details of any new unlocking policy, and a company publicist had not returned an email requesting comment.
Whatever a carrier’s phone-unlocking rules look like, you can avoid them by buying an unlocked phone—even a new high-end model like an iPhone 17 or a Pixel 10—direct from a manufacturer or at retail, and usually with the same no-interest installment-plan payment options the carriers tout.
The FCC order notes that the commission may later set industry-wide rules for phone unlocking. It had begun an effort along those lines in 2024, when then-chair Jessica Rosenworcel proposed subjecting all carriers to a 60-day unlocking rule; it seems safe to predict that under the FCC’s current management, whatever rules do come out will not resemble that proposal.
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