These US carriers currently support RCS messaging on iPhone

Michael Burkhardt | Jan 4 2025 - 6:54 am PT

With iOS 18, Apple introduced support for RCS messaging, a new protocol that enhances the texting experience between iPhone and Android users. Unlike SMS, you can see read/delivered receipts, send larger files, and have typing indicators, features that were previously missing. At first, only the big three carriers supported RCS messaging. Since then, a lot more have joined in on the fun.

This list is based on information directly from Apple, and will be updated as new carriers are added.

Supported carriers:

AT&T
Boost Mobile (requires iOS 18.2)
C Spire
Consumer Cellular
Cricket
FirstNet
H20 Wireless
Metro by T-Mobile
PureTalk
Red Pocket
Spectrum Mobile
T-Mobile
TracFone / Straight Talk
US Cellular
Verizon
Visible
Xfinity Mobile

This is obviously far more than what we had at launch, which was primarily just AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. There’s a lot more support from MVNOs (mobile virtual network operators, ie small carriers) – but it still isn’t very complete.

Some notable exceptions from the list are Mint Mobile and Ultra Mobile, which have around 3 million subscribers in the US.

Top comment by burt

Liked by 4 people

Enjoying RCS availability as a whole, the only complaint I have so far, which is no small matter, is that fairly frequently, messages will fail to send as RCS, and instead of automatically sending as SMS upon failure to deliver (as iMessages do), I see much later the message failed to send to my wife, and I need to manually tell it to send as SMS. (Yes I married a green bubble, she's great otherwise guys, I swear!) Since I'm using Siri to message her handsfree, I'm not watching to make sure the message goes through...I'm keeping my eyes on the road. Seems to be an area for improvement that a lot of people would appreciate.

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Mint Mobile and Ultra Mobile are particularly interesting because they were both acquired by T-Mobile earlier this year, but seemingly T-Mobile hasn’t yet gotten around to supporting the feature on its new sub-brands.

Have you gotten to use RCS messaging with iOS 18 yet? What do you think about it? Let us know in the comments below.

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Michael Burkhardt mbrkhrdt

Michael is a 9to5Mac Reporter, leading all of our Apple news coverage on weekends and reviewing the newest Apple products and accessories. He got started in the world of Apple news during the pandemic, and it became a growing hobby. He’s also an indie iOS developer, and started the weekly Indie App Spotlight series, which has covered hundreds of blooming new apps since it launched. In his free time, he enjoys shooting street photography around New York City on his Sony A7RV.

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