Number porting runs on the carrier’s schedule, not yours

Every voice project has one dependency you cannot compress, and it is not the configuration. It is the carrier. Numbers move on their schedule, and no amount of project management makes a regulated telecom process go faster.

The actual windows

There is no single headline figure, which is the first thing worth knowing. Aircall publishes requirements and typical times country by country, counted from when your documentation is validated, and the spread is wide. A few examples from Aircall's porting requirements by country:

• Belgium and Croatia, up to 10 days.
• Czech Republic, up to 12 days.
• Canada, Spain and Switzerland, up to 15 days.
• Austria, 2 to 3 weeks.
• Germany, up to 45 days.
• Australia, up to 6 weeks.

For the United States and Canada, Aircall's self-service porting guide says porting typically takes 10 to 15 business days once all information is validated. Aircall also says the final porting date is set by your current provider, so treat any figure as typical, not guaranteed (Aircall porting guide).

Countries also split by port type. Australia has simple and complex categories. The UK and Spain split single-line from multi-line. Which one you are in changes the timeline.

These are ranges, not commitments, and they assume your paperwork is right first time.

Most delays are not the carrier being slow

They are rejected requests. The account holder name does not match. The service address is stale. The losing carrier has a PIN requirement nobody knew about. Every rejection restarts the clock.

Getting the paperwork right is the single highest-leverage thing you can do, and it happens before any configuration work starts.

Sequence so porting is not the blocker

• Submit the port with verified account details in week one, before design decisions are finished.
• Build call flows against temporary numbers so behaviour is proven before cutover.
• Wire call logging into the helpdesk early, because that is where reporting gaps surface.
• Keep the old system reachable through the cutover window rather than switching on a single evening.

What moves and what gets rebuilt

Numbers port. Call recordings and history live on the Aircall account rather than the carrier and come out through the API. The Aircall Dashboard shows the last 6 months of call recordings. Older recordings can be requested from Aircall Support: up to 1 year back on Essentials, and as far back as they are stored on Professional and Custom.

One correction worth noting, because we had this wrong ourselves: call flows do not always have to be rebuilt. Aircall now documents importing a Smartflows call distribution to another number, including the full configuration. Tags, saved replies and automation logic across systems still rarely map one to one, so the mapping document still gets written and approved before anything moves.

The one thing to tell your stakeholders

Give them Aircall's typical time for your specific country, name the owner, which is the carrier, and show the parallel plan. A go-live date built on a guess instead of the carrier's confirmed date is not an aggressive plan. It is a missed date with extra steps.

Verified against

• Aircall support, number porting requirements by country.
• Aircall support, submitting a US or Canada porting request via the Aircall Dashboard.
• Aircall support, Aircall porting guide.
• Aircall support, handling porting rejections.
• Aircall support, importing a call flow (Smartflows) configuration to another number.
• Aircall support, accessing call recordings and requesting older recordings.
• Aircall, pricing and plan features.

Porting and recording figures checked against Aircall documentation on October 13, 2026.

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