What Happens When a Temporary Number Expires?

SMS Virtual offers a 20-minute standard rental and extended requests for 1, 3, or 7 days. Use the expiry and countdown on the assigned activation as your reference. The period starts with the rental, not when you first request a verification code.

After the rental ends, do not submit new verification requests to the old number. Previously received messages may remain visible in account history, but that is not continued access to the line or a promise of permanent message storage.

Copy only the information you need for your legitimate task. Do not treat SMS history as a backup for account recovery credentials.

Temporary numbers can be recycled. A later renter may receive future SMS addressed to the same number, which creates an account-recovery risk if you leave it attached to a valuable account.

US local formatting does not change this risk: a +1 number rented for a short task is still temporary.

The current activation screen offers “Get another,” which starts a new rental flow; it does not guarantee an extension or the same phone number. Do not purchase another activation expecting to recover an expired number.

Where supported, replace the temporary number with your own long-term number and configure an authenticator, recovery email, or backup codes. Follow the external service’s security instructions.

If you have already lost access, use that service’s official account-recovery process. SMS Virtual cannot override another provider’s account checks or guarantee reacquisition of a number.