Devices Phones: storage, batteries and knowing when to upgrade
How long before a carrier unlocks your phone?
Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile unlock rules for 2026: 0, 40 or 60 days postpaid, a year prepaid, why "60 days" still circulates, and the UK ban.
The short answer
- A carrier unlocks a postpaid phone once it is paid off: immediately at Verizon, after 40 days active on the line at T-Mobile, and after 60 days from purchase at AT&T.
- Prepaid phones wait about a year: 365 days of paid and active service at Verizon, 12 months of paid service at AT&T, and 365 days since activation at T-Mobile unless refills top $100.
- For a phone on installments, the payoff is what keeps it locked, not the calendar, so paying off the balance early is the fastest route to an unlock.
- "60 days" circulates because Verizon was required to unlock after 60 days until the FCC waived that rule on January 12, 2026, and because the FCC proposed 60 days for every carrier in 2024 without it becoming a rule.
- In the UK, Ofcom has banned mobile companies from selling locked phones since December 2021.
It depends on the carrier and on whether you pay monthly or prepay, and the range runs from no wait at all to a full year. At Verizon, since February 18, 2026, a postpaid phone unlocks automatically the moment it is paid for: bought at full retail, or with the financing balance paid off. At T-Mobile, a postpaid phone needs at least 40 days active on your line and must be paid in full. At AT&T, you must have bought it more than 60 days ago and paid it off. Prepaid is the slow lane everywhere: 365 days of paid and active service at Verizon, 12 months of paid service at AT&T, and 365 days since activation at T-Mobile, unless you have topped up more than $100 in that time.
Every carrier's rule in one table
These come from each carrier's own unlocking policy page, read on October 31, 2026. No carrier puts the others' rules next to its own, and most comparison tables online still show the Verizon rule that ended in early 2026.
| Carrier and plan | Waiting period | Must be paid off | How the unlock happens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Verizon postpaid | None, or 35 days if you paid with a Verizon gift card | Yes: bought at full retail, or financing balance paid in full | Automatic |
| Verizon prepaid | 365 days of paid and active service | Not applicable | Automatic after the 365 days, unless the phone is flagged as stolen or bought fraudulently |
| AT&T postpaid | Bought more than 60 days ago | Yes: installment balance must be zero, and your bill cannot be past due | Eligible Apple, Samsung and Google phones should unlock by themselves; otherwise submit an unlock request |
| AT&T prepaid | 12 months of paid AT&T service | Not applicable | Submit an unlock request |
| T-Mobile postpaid | At least 40 days active on the line asking for the unlock | Yes: financed or leased phones paid in full; a canceled account must have a zero balance | Automatic within two business days if the phone supports remote unlock; otherwise a notification with next steps |
| T-Mobile prepaid | 365 days since activation, or sooner with more than $100 in refills per line, and always more than 14 days since purchase | Not applicable | As for postpaid; no more than 2 unlocks per line in 12 months |
Read the third column before the second. For a postpaid phone bought on monthly installments, the waiting period is almost never what holds you up. A phone on a payment plan stays locked at all three carriers until the balance reaches zero, however many days have passed. The 40 or 60 days only decide anything if you paid the full price up front, or if you pay off the remaining balance early, which all three allow.
All three carriers also refuse to unlock a phone reported lost or stolen, and both AT&T and T-Mobile require the account to be in good standing.
Why "60 days" is the number everyone quotes
Search the question and "60 days" comes up again and again. It is correct for exactly one case today, AT&T postpaid, and the rest of its popularity comes from two rules that no longer apply, or never did.
Verizon used to be bound to it. Under a 2007 FCC rule tied to a spectrum auction, Verizon was the only major carrier the FCC required to unlock its phones 60 days after activation. The FCC extended that requirement in 2021 as a condition of Verizon buying TracFone. For years this made Verizon the fastest carrier to unlock, and most of the articles you will find were written then. On January 12, 2026, the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau waived the rule. The FCC's announcement quotes Verizon saying it "saw a spike in fraud of approximately 55%" after TracFone moved from its earlier one year lock to Verizon's 60 day lock, and says Verizon will now follow the voluntary CTIA Consumer Code for Wireless Service, as its competitors do. Verizon's new policy took effect on February 18, 2026. For postpaid customers it removed the wait entirely. For prepaid it replaced 60 days with 365.
The FCC proposed it for everyone. On June 27, 2024, then FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced a proposal under which, as TechCrunch put it, "carriers would simply have to provide unlocking services 60 days after activation." That was a proposed rule, not a rule. In its January 2026 announcement the FCC still described Verizon as the only major provider it required to unlock at 60 days, and a January 2026 analysis by the law firm Nelson Mullins described the industry wide proposal as still pending. Articles from mid 2024 that report the proposal as if it settled the matter are a large share of the "60 days" results.
It hides inside other rules. Verizon's policy still contains a 60 day figure, but only for deployed military customers, whose devices unlock once the account is verified in good standing after 60 days of being active.
So the answer to "do carriers have to unlock after 60 days" is no. No US law sets one waiting period for every carrier; each one sets its own, and the table above is what they say now.
The edge cases that change your date
Paying with a gift card. Verizon holds a phone paid for with a Verizon gift card for 35 days while it checks that the card's funds were not obtained through fraudulent or illegal means.
Prepaid brands owned by a carrier. Benton, summarizing a January 2026 Ars Technica report, says TracFone, Verizon's prepaid division, began requiring 365 days of paid service and an unlock request rather than unlocking automatically. A prepaid brand's own policy is the one that applies, so read it rather than its parent company's.
Military deployment. T-Mobile unlocks for deployed military customers in good standing who provide their overseas orders. Verizon lets deployed customers suspend the line, with the 60 day rule above.
Business lines. AT&T makes business customers wait 30 days to unlock a phone that was on a two year contract and was upgraded early.
Unlocked is permanent. Verizon states that once a device is unlocked it will never re-lock it. That does not promise it will work everywhere: Verizon also warns that an unlocked Verizon phone may have limited functionality, or none, on another carrier's network.
Checking a used phone before you pay
A locked used phone is only as useful as the carrier it is locked to, and the unlock rules above are written for the original buyer's account. T-Mobile says plainly that to unlock a device it did not sell, you have to contact the carrier or manufacturer that did. AT&T does accept unlock requests from people without an AT&T account, as long as the phone meets every requirement, which includes being paid off and not reported stolen. A seller still paying installments cannot pass that test.
Check the status yourself rather than trusting the listing. On an iPhone, AT&T's instructions are Settings, General, About, then Carrier Lock: "SIM locked" means locked. On a Samsung phone released after September 1, 2025, it is Settings, Connections, More connection settings, Network lock status. Do this alongside the other checks in the guide to replacing a phone or keeping it another year, and look up how many years of security updates the model has left, because a cheap unlocked phone with a year of support remaining is not a bargain. While the phone is in your hand, read its battery figure too, using what actually wears a phone battery out to judge what the number means.
If you are on the selling side, unlock first, then wipe it properly. Resetting a phone before it leaves your hands covers signing out of the accounts that otherwise leave the buyer with a phone they cannot activate.
The UK banned locked phones in 2021
Outside the US the waiting period can be zero by law. Ofcom announced on 27 October 2020 that mobile companies would be banned from selling locked handsets, with the rule in force from December 2021. At the time, BT/EE, Tesco Mobile and Vodafone still sold locked phones, while O2, Sky, Three and Virgin already chose to sell them unlocked. Ofcom said unlocking could cost around £10, that more than a third (35%) of people who decided against switching said locking put them off, and that almost half of customers who tried to unlock ran into difficulties.
The ban is about what a UK mobile company may sell. It does not reach a phone bought from a US carrier and carried to the UK, and a handset sold locked before December 2021 still needs unlocking by the network that sold it.
This page covers the three national US carriers and the UK rule. Smaller US carriers, such as UScellular, and prepaid brands publish their own policies, and carriers change theirs without notice, as Verizon did this year. This is general information, so check your carrier's current page before relying on a date.
What to do before you switch carriers
- Check the lock status on the phone or in your carrier account.
- Pay off the balance if the phone is financed. At every carrier that is the condition that matters most.
- Wait out or request the unlock. Verizon and T-Mobile postpaid unlock automatically; at AT&T, submit a request if the phone has not unlocked by itself.
- Port your number rather than cancelling. Cancel the old line first and the number is disconnected, then eventually handed to a stranger, as set out in how long before a phone number is reassigned.
- Move your sign in codes. Any account that texts a code to your number needs that number working on the new carrier, so confirm which accounts use text message codes, and set up a backup way back into your accounts before switching in case a code goes missing during the move.
- Back up the phone before any reset or SIM change, using a backup you have actually tested.
Done in that order, the unlock is usually the quickest step. Paying off the phone is the slow one.
Common questions
Does Verizon still unlock phones after 60 days?
No. Verizon's 60 day automatic unlock ended after the FCC waived the rule that imposed it on January 12, 2026. Under the policy in effect since February 18, 2026, a postpaid phone unlocks automatically once it is bought at full retail or the financing is paid off, and a prepaid phone stays locked until 365 days of paid and active service.
Can I get my phone unlocked if I still owe money on it?
Not at Verizon, AT&T or T-Mobile. All three require a financed phone to be paid in full first, and AT&T says the installment balance must be zero. Unlocking does not end the debt, so the way through is to pay off what remains, after which the usual waiting rules apply: none at Verizon, 40 days on the line at T-Mobile, 60 days since purchase at AT&T.
Is there a law that says carriers must unlock phones?
Not a single US law with one waiting period for every carrier. The FCC proposed a 60 day rule for all carriers in 2024, but in January 2026 it still described Verizon as the only major provider it required to unlock at 60 days, and then waived that requirement too. Carriers follow the voluntary CTIA Consumer Code and their own published policies.
How do I know if my phone is carrier locked?
On an iPhone, open Settings, General, About and look at Carrier Lock; "SIM locked" means it is locked. On a Samsung phone released after September 1, 2025, open Settings, Connections, More connection settings and check Network lock status. Your carrier account also shows it: AT&T's device info says "Device unlocked" once it is done.
Why does T-Mobile prepaid unlock sooner if I spend $100?
Because T-Mobile's prepaid rule has two routes. Either 365 days have passed since the phone was activated on its network, or the account has had more than $100 in refills for each line during that time. Either way, more than 14 days must have passed since you bought the phone, and a line gets no more than two unlocks in 12 months.