Why one number isn't enough: in 2026 Britain and the US brought new rules, and the year's numbers show why more people than ever now keep an extra number in an app. Your bank texts you a code to log in to your account on the number of digits you shared with the bank years ago, and your WhatsApp account lingers on the same digits. Britain and the US changed rules on those digits in 2026, and the year's figures reveal why an increasing share of people also now keep a second number in an app.
A flat line at fifty billion calls
The YouMail Robocall Index projected in January 2026 that in 2025 the US brought about 52.5 billion robocalls in a year, a bit fewer than 2024's 52.8 billion. YouMail notes that annual figures have been a little over 50 billion to a little over 55 billion for the past five years. Those figures are estimations calculated from the calls that hit YouMail users, so the amount can be confident and the decade's decimal points are just there for fun.
YouMail's CEO announced in January 2026 that "close to 30 billion" of those annual US calls remain unwanted telemarketing and scam calls. December 2025 alone produced 4.1 billion, after a multi-year monthly low in October 2025. Growth of the industry and the garbage flow are both at the same volume.
Britain's approach is through volunteers. Ofcom published in 2025 that the UK's mobile users forwarded an estimated 100 million nuisance calls to their operators through the free 7726 reporting number in the past 12 months to April 2025. That's not a nation shrugging off a hundred million forwarded calls.
The rules that landed in 2025 and 2026
From 29 January 2025, all UK phone companies must block foreign calls that display a UK landline number as the calling number. The guidance, in place from 15 July 2026 for mobiles, states that calls from abroad that look like a UK mobile number beginning +447 will have their caller ID withheld, unless the operator can verify it. The simple reason is that people are more likely to answer.
Ofcom said in July 2026 that UK mobile operators are already blocking more than 600m scam text messages annually, and that about 40% of UK mobile subscribers said they had received at least one scam text message in the past three months. The rules for messaging, announced that month, will happen in two stages: from 18 January 2027 operators must impose send limits on pay-as-you-go SIMs and block numbers and messages used by scammers; from 15 July 2027, business senders must be registered and will be prohibited from using fake alphanumeric sender names.
The rules do not include messaging apps such as WhatsApp and iMessage. The US has been put under pressure by the mobile operators rather than the regulator. Since February 2025 the big networks have been blocking business messaging sent from unregistered 10-digit long-code numbers, which means companies that send text messages to customers from regular-looking numbers must register with The Campaign Registry.
The card is going quiet
The mobile operators' association's research arm, GSMA Intelligence, toned down its forecast for eSIM adoption last year to roughly 4.9 billion connections in 2030, or 55% of all smartphone connections, down from the 6.7 billion it forecast in 2022.
Apple tried to foist the hardware anyway. The Air, introduced in September 2025, has no tray in the UK or anywhere else. The latest iteration of the iPhone, the iPhone 17, is also eSIM-only in the US, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and several Gulf states. In Britain and the rest of Europe it still has a card slot so British buyers can still slip a card in.
The Crime and Policing Act 2026 received Royal Assent on 29 April 2026, criminalizing having or distributing a SIM farm without a good reason. A "SIM farm" is a device that can operate five or more SIM cards; the offence will kick in at a later date announced in regulations.
Your number is the account
Two of the biggest messaging apps' policies mean your number is the entire account. Meta announced on its first-quarter 2025 earnings call that WhatsApp has over 3 billion monthly users, and Telegram founder Pavel Durov announced in March 2025 that Telegram has passed 1 billion monthly users, both give you an account with a phone number and send the login code as a call or SMS.
Numbers get reused. The Federal Communications Commission estimated in its 2018 order establishing the Reassigned Numbers Database that around 35 million US phone numbers are disconnected and recycled every year. Since 2021, carriers have been required to report disconnected numbers, allowing callers to check whether a number has been reassigned, though this checks the number not the account.
Deciding where to hand it over
Imagine putting your sofa up on a classifieds site on a Sunday evening. By Tuesday it is gone, and the ad keeps getting pings about it for weeks after, plus a couple of "missed delivery" texts about a parcel that doesn't exist. That was a number there for two days. Your bank, your GPs and your WhatsApp contacts have never needed to have it.
So people break it into two. One number for the bank, HMRC and family; a second for listings, sign-ups and couriers you will never hear from again. The second does not have to be a second SIM; a virtual phone number from MoreMins lives on the app on iPhone or Android, US and UK numbers cost $0.99 a month and incoming calls and texts are free. It only rings when the phone has Wi-Fi or mobile data, and you can cancel it once the sofa is gone.