How to Forward Your Number to Another Phone (2026)

By SalesCaptain Team · Updated August 4, 2026

Every missed call is a missed opportunity. If you’re a service business owner, knowing how to forward your number to another phone can be the difference between capturing a lead and losing one to a competitor who picked up first. Sound familiar? Whether you’re stepping away from the office, juggling multiple locations, or simply need after-hours coverage, call forwarding ensures your business line always connects to a live person or system that can help.

Call forwarding automatically redirects incoming calls from one number to another phone, ensuring you never miss important calls. Instead of ringing endlessly or going to voicemail, calls reach your cell, colleague’s phone, or an answering system. For service businesses, this feature prevents lost leads and captures opportunities around the clock.

What Is Call Forwarding?

Call forwarding is a phone feature that automatically redirects incoming calls from one number to another. Instead of letting a call ring endlessly or go to voicemail, the system sends it to a different phone. Maybe that’s your cell. Maybe it’s a colleague’s desk phone. Or an automated answering system. The caller doesn’t know the difference. They dial your main business number, and the call arrives wherever you’ve told it to go.

For small businesses, this feature is essential. The vast majority of U.S. businesses are small operations, often with lean teams that can’t staff a front desk all day. Call forwarding gives these businesses the ability to stay reachable without hiring additional people. It’s honestly one of the simplest ways to prevent revenue from walking out the door.

How to Forward Your Number on Major Carriers and Devices

The exact steps depend on your carrier and device type, but the core process is straightforward across all of them. Here’s a breakdown by the most common methods.

Using Star Codes on Any Phone

Star codes (also called pound codes) work on virtually every carrier in the United States. You don’t need a smartphone or an app. Just open your phone’s dialer and enter the right code.

• Activate unconditional forwarding: Dial *72, followed by the 10-digit number you want calls forwarded to, then press the call button. Wait for a confirmation tone or message.
• Deactivate forwarding: Dial *73 and press call. You’ll hear a confirmation tone letting you know forwarding is off.
• Forward only when busy: Dial *90 plus the destination number to route calls that hit a busy signal.
• Forward when unanswered: Dial *92 plus the destination number so calls redirect after a set number of rings.

These codes work on most traditional landlines and many VoIP systems. That said, some carriers use slightly different codes, so check with your provider if *72 doesn’t work on the first try.

Forwarding on iPhone

Apple makes this easy. Open Settings → Phone → Call Forwarding, toggle it on, and enter the number you want calls sent to. Once activated, a small phone icon appears in your status bar as a visual reminder. Keep in mind that this method works on most GSM carriers but isn’t available on all CDMA networks.

Forwarding on Android

Android’s interface varies by manufacturer, but the general path is similar. Open the Phone app → tap the three-dot menu → Settings → Calls → Call Forwarding. You’ll typically see options for forwarding all calls, forwarding when busy, forwarding when unanswered, and forwarding when unreachable. Select the one you need. Enter the destination number. Confirm.

Carrier-Specific Settings

Most major carriers also let you manage call forwarding through their apps or websites. Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile all offer account portals where you can set up and manage forwarding rules without touching your phone’s settings. This approach is especially useful if you’ve lost your device or don’t have it with you, since you can configure forwarding remotely from any computer.

Why Call Forwarding Matters for Service Businesses

Understanding how to forward your number to another phone isn’t just a tech skill. It’s a business strategy. Research on missed call rates consistently shows that small businesses lose significant revenue from unanswered calls. A homeowner looking for an emergency plumber won’t leave a voicemail and wait. They’ll call the next company on the list.

Call forwarding addresses several critical pain points at once. After-hours calls get routed to someone who can actually help, rather than dying in a voicemail box that doesn’t get checked until morning. When staff members are in the field (as they often are in home services, healthcare, and real estate), calls follow them instead of sitting unanswered at the office. And for multi-location businesses, forwarding can route calls to whichever location has availability. So customers aren’t bounced around.

The Cost of Getting It Wrong

Consider what happens without forwarding in place. A potential client calls your roofing company at 5:15 PM, just after your office closes. Nobody answers. They call a competitor. That’s not hypothetical. Analysis from industry researchers suggests missed calls can cost small businesses tens of thousands of dollars annually in lost revenue. Even a basic forwarding setup dramatically reduces that leakage.

But simple forwarding has limits. It only sends calls to one destination. It can’t qualify a lead, book an appointment, or answer a question about your hours. That’s where more advanced call flow systems come in.

Best Practices for Call Forwarding

Setting up forwarding takes 30 seconds. Setting it up well takes a bit more thought. Here are the practices that separate a functional setup from one that actually grows your business.

Use Conditional Forwarding Instead of Blanket Forwarding

Unconditional forwarding (the *72 method) sends every single call to another number. That’s useful in specific situations, like when you’re on vacation. But for day-to-day operations, conditional forwarding gives you more control. Forward only when the line is busy. Or only after a certain number of rings. This way, your primary team gets first crack at answering, and the backup number only kicks in when needed.

Always Tell Your Team

It sounds obvious, but forwarding errors cause real confusion. If you forward your office line to a personal cell and forget to mention it, a team member might spend an hour troubleshooting why the phones are “broken.” Keep a log. Or better yet, use a system with a dashboard where everyone can see the current routing setup.

Don’t Forward to Voicemail-Only Numbers

Forwarding to another phone that also goes to voicemail defeats the purpose. Before you set a forwarding destination, make sure someone will actually pick up. Data on the cost of missed calls makes it clear that voicemail recovery rates are low. Most customers won’t leave a message. They’ll move on.

Test It Before You Need It

After configuring forwarding, call your own number from a different phone. Verify the call arrives where it should. Check that audio quality is clear and that the caller ID displays correctly. A two-minute test can save you from losing calls for days without realizing it.

How SalesCaptain Helps

Basic call forwarding solves one problem: routing a call to a different phone. But it doesn’t solve the bigger challenge, which is making sure every call gets handled properly, even when no human is available to answer. That’s where SalesCaptain goes beyond what a star code can do.

SalesCaptain’s Call Flows feature lets you build sophisticated routing logic with a visual drag-and-drop builder. Instead of forwarding all calls to one backup number, you can create step-by-step paths based on time of day, caller input through IVR menus, team member availability, or even the type of inquiry. Calls can route to specific departments. They can play custom greetings. Or escalate through a sequence of team members before falling back to a final destination.

When nobody’s available at all, the AI Phone Agent picks up. It doesn’t just take a message. It answers FAQs, qualifies leads, books appointments directly into your calendar, and blocks spam, all in a natural-sounding voice that runs 24/7. For small businesses that make up the backbone of the U.S. economy, this kind of automation eliminates the need to hire additional staff just to cover phones.

Everything flows into a Unified Inbox where your team sees calls, texts, webchat messages, and social media DMs in one place. Missed-call text-back automatically sends an SMS to anyone whose call wasn’t answered. So even if a caller hangs up, you’ve still opened a conversation. Plus, AI Summaries and Transcriptions turn every call into a searchable, shareable record with action items, so nothing falls through the cracks.

With pricing starting at a free plan for a single location and paid plans at $159/month per location, SalesCaptain is built specifically for service businesses that need professional call handling without the complexity or cost of enterprise phone platforms. Over 50 integrations with tools like HubSpot, Salesforce, HousecallPro, and QuickBooks mean your call data connects directly to the systems you already use.

Key Takeaways

Knowing how to forward your number to another phone is a foundational skill for any business owner who can’t afford to miss calls. Star codes like *72 and *73 work across most carriers. Both iPhone and Android offer built-in settings that take seconds to configure. Conditional forwarding gives you more control than unconditional. And testing your setup before you rely on it prevents silent failures.

However, forwarding alone only redirects the ring. It doesn’t answer questions, book appointments, or capture lead information. For service businesses that want true 24/7 coverage, combining call forwarding with AI-powered call flows and automated agents closes the gap between a ringing phone and a booked customer. Modern AI answering solutions now make this accessible even for small teams.

The businesses that win aren’t necessarily the best at their trade. They’re the ones that pick up the phone.

Does call forwarding also forward text messages?

No. Standard call forwarding only redirects voice calls. Text messages (SMS and MMS) aren’t affected by call forwarding settings on any major carrier. If you need to route texts to another number, you’ll need a business communication platform that supports multi-channel messaging. Or you can use your carrier’s app to view texts remotely.

Can I forward calls to a number in a different area code or state?

Yes. There aren’t restrictions on forwarding to numbers in different area codes or states. You can forward to any valid 10-digit U.S. phone number, whether it’s local, long-distance, or even a VoIP number. Some carriers may apply long-distance charges to forwarded calls, so check your plan details.

Will the person I forward to see the original caller’s number?

It depends on your carrier and forwarding method. In many cases, the forwarding phone will display the original caller’s number. But some carriers show your business number instead, which can make it hard to identify who’s calling. VoIP-based systems like SalesCaptain preserve caller ID information and display it alongside contact history in the unified inbox.

How much does call forwarding cost?

Most carriers include basic call forwarding for free with standard plans. However, cost management is a priority for small businesses, and some carriers charge per-minute rates for forwarded calls, especially to landlines or long-distance numbers. VoIP business phone systems typically include forwarding at no extra charge as part of their call routing features.

Can I set up call forwarding if I don’t have my phone with me?

Yes, in most cases. Major carriers let you manage call forwarding through their online account portals or mobile apps, which you can access from any device with internet access. If you use a cloud-based phone system, you can adjust routing rules from a web dashboard on any computer. You don’t need physical access to your phone at all.