Unlocking your phone is legal, but some restrictions, as they say, may apply. Your phone needs to be fully paid for, whether you have a completed installment plan or come to the end of a two-year contract. If you have a prepaid phone, carriers can't lock you in for more than 12 months. In addition, the phone you seek to unlock must not be reported lost or stolen and your account must be in good standing. We'll cover how the big four carriers in the U.S. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon - handle unlock requests. You may not need to request your carrier to unlock your phone.įind out if your phone is already unlocked Before we get to the carriers, however, you should check to see if your phone is locked.
Verizon, for example, largely sells unlocked phones.
The sure-fire way to check to see if your phone is unlocked is to call your current carrier and ask. If you aren't up to the task of navigating customer service and you have a GSM phone (uses a SIM card), you could swap in a SIM card from another carrier to see if it works. If you can make a call or send a text with the new SIM card, then your phone is unlocked.
