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How to activate eSIM on a T-Mobile postpaid account

T-Mobile released an app that allows users to activate a plan with an eSIM. The one caveat is that the app only allows users to activate a prepaid plan, leaving most of its customers out in the dark with no support for postpaid. However, there is a workaround that has seen some success over the past few weeks.

Follow along to learn how to activate eSIM on a T-Mobile postpaid account.

How to activate eSIM on a T-Mobile postpaid account

An important note before we get started, know that this isn’t a concrete method and that it may rely on some luck to get it properly activated.

Before reaching out to T-Mobile, you’ll need to grab your EID number. To do this, go to Settings > General > About. Scroll all the way to the bottom, and look for an EID number, this is an electronic SIM card number, similar to an ICCID for physical SIM cards.

  1. Reach out to T-Mobile through its various mediums (call 611, contact T-Force on social, use iMessage Business chat, etc.) and let them know you want to do a simple SIM swap.
  2. If they ask for an ICCID number (SIM card number), tell them you only have the EID number. This is where it gets tricky. If they tell you they can’t (won’t) activate a SIM card with an EID number, you’ll simply have to try again until you get a customer service representative that will activate an EID number.
  3. Once the customer service representative inputs your EID into the system, wait until you get a text message saying your SIM card change has been successfully changed. Make sure your iPhone is on Wi-Fi, as the ”SIM swap” will deactivate your old SIM.
  4. Once you’ve received the text message regarding the SIM change, go into Settings > Cellular > Add a Cellular Plan.
  5. Tap add details manually.
  6. Under SM-DP+ Address, type in the following link: https://cust-005-v4-prod-atl2.gdsb.net
  7. Leave the remaining two fields blank and tap Next. If successful, you’ll get a prompt letting you know that your service has been successfully added through T-Mobile. From there, it’ll ask you how you’d like to set up dual SIM as you technically have two SIMs on your iPhone. If you get an error, you likely mistyped the EID number to your CS representative. At this point, you’ll probably want to try again with your CS representative.
  8. Now, you can remove your physical SIM and use your eSIM as your primary SIM. If you have a secondary SIM you’d like to add, you can insert it now. Note that your secondary SIM will need to be a physical SIM in order to take advantage of dual SIM.

Setting up an eSIM on a postpaid T-Mobile account is an absolute mess right now. And rightfully so as the carrier’s official policy is that it doesn’t currently support eSIM on postpaid plans. However, for those few that have been able to get through to a customer service representative, it’s been proven that it can indeed be activated and working.

If you aren’t able to get customer service to activate an eSIM, unfortunately you’ll have to wait until T-Mobile officially supports the feature. At this point in time, the aforementioned steps are the only way to get it activated and if customer service won’t push your EID through, you’re out of luck for now. Hopefully, T-Mobile will straighten things out soon and roll out proper eSIM support on their network.

For more help getting the most out of your Apple devices, check out our how to guide as well as the following articles:


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