my personal hotspot is not working on iphone 16 pro max

The iPhone will only display the options that your carrier is sending from their cell towers.

You have a carrier issue here.....not an Apple issue. You need to contact your carrier and ask them why the Hotspot option is not available. You may need to take the phone in to the carrier's store for testing.

When the carrier is sending the correct information to your iPhone, the Hotspot option will appear. There is nothing that you can do on the iPhone to make the Hotspot option appear. It will appear automatically when your carrier is sending the correct information to your phone.

It is your carrier.....not Apple..... that provides a Hotspot feature.

The phone will only display the information that it receives from your carrier. As it stands now, your phone is not receiving any Hotspot information at all from your carrier.

There are a few possibilities for this:

• Your carrier does not provide a Hotspot option with their service

• Your carrier does provide a Hotspot option, but you have to sign up for that as an optional feature.....usually at additional cost

So, you will need to check with the customer support people at your carrier to get clarification on things.

When your carrier is sending Hotspot info to your phone, the screen will look like this when you tap Settings > Cellular

Tap Settings > Cellular

Is there a setting for Personal Hotspot there? If yes, is the setting "On"?

Or, does the setting for Personal Hotspot not even appear?

A shot in the dark.

It is possible that your carrier might have sent an update notice to your phone, but you were not notified to install the update. My carrier sends me an email if a new update is available.

Tap Settings > General > About

Is there a message there that indicates that there is a carrier or network update available?

If yes, tap to install the update and note any instructions that may appear.