Can I transfer my physical SIM to eSIM and keep my number when swapping iPhones?

Roscoe3009 wrote:

i want to pay of my sons device and purchase iPhone air and swap over contacts with him so he would get my iPhone 15 and I would get iPhone air. Is it possible to do this and can I transfer my physical sim over to eSIM and keep my number in new phone

Okay, so you have an iPhone 15 to be replaced with a new iPhone Air, and separately have an unspecified iPhone being paid off and retired and replaced with an iPhone 15?

If so, have at.

You’ll want to be using separate Apple Accounts anyway, so your old iPhone can be reset and prepared for ownership transfer, and your son can then transfer their contents from their iPhone to the newly-decommissioned iPhone 15.

How to transfer ownership of the iPhone 15, then how to transfer data from the unspecified iPhone to the iPhone 15:

• What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support

• Transfer data from your previous iOS or iPadOS device to your new iPhone or iPad - Apple Support

Your carrier can assist with shuffling the phone numbers, and migrating your number to eSIM for iPhone Air.

Or is this paying off an iPhone Air that your son has, and replacing it with a your iPhone 15?

If so, ask your carrier for help with the numbers, then back up both, reset and release both, swap, respectively restore.

Whichever path, I’d add a separate phone number for two-factor authentication on each Apple Account, as swapping the numbers here will potentially prevent two-factor codes from arriving. This if you do not have other Apple devices associated with each of the two Apple Accounts, and already set up as trusted devices.

• About trusted phone numbers and trusted devices for Apple Account - Apple Support

Above assumes no carrier swapping here. If there are carrier swaps and carrier-locked devices, that’ll have to be cleared first.

Roscoe3009 wrote:

Is it possible to do this and can I transfer my physical sim over to eSIM and keep my number in new phone

Contact your carrier for SIM-to-eSIM transfer between Devices.

With eSIM Quick Transfer, you can transfer your phone number from your previous iPhone to your new iPhone without contacting your network ...

Find wireless network providers and worldwide service ...

I think you would be better served by asking your cellular provider first. Their rules usually affect what can and cannot be done with transferring service and numbers.

If you want to transfer contacts between iPhone devices, you can use iCloud or another mail account to back up or transfer content between devices.

Import contacts from your SIM card to your iPhone