Mexico Now Needs Your CURP to Keep a Phone Line Active. Here Is What That Covers.

Since January 2026 a Mexican carrier may only keep a mobile line switched on if that line is linked to its holder's CURP, the national population ID number. Lines that are not linked are being suspended on a published calendar that runs to the end of December 2026. If you have been searching whether an eSIM gets you out of this, the honest answer has two halves, and most pages only tell you the half that suits them.

What the rule actually says

Mexico passed a new telecommunications law in July 2025, and the regulator issued the implementing rules in December 2025. They took effect in January 2026. The operative sentence puts the obligation on the operator, not on you: a concessionaire may only activate and keep active those lines associated with end users who have presented official identification containing a CURP. A parallel provision applies the same duty to resellers and virtual operators.

Read that again, because the wording is the whole story. It is a condition on the licence of companies that operate mobile networks in Mexico, enforced by switching off lines they cannot link. It is not a registration errand handed to every person using a phone on Mexican soil. The rules say in their own scope article that they are binding on Mexican concessionaires and resellers providing mobile telephone service.

That is why a foreign line sits outside it. When you roam, the Mexican network serves your device as a visitor under agreements between operators, and your line remains a subscription of the carrier that issued it, in the country that issued it. No Mexican operator holds a subscriber relationship to link. Mexico's own regulator has made the same point publicly, noting that foreign eSIM profiles do not assign a Mexican phone number, and it confirmed that visitors arriving for the 2026 World Cup on international roaming do not need to register a line, while anyone who buys a Mexican SIM or eSIM does.

Why PikaSim asks for nothing

We do not collect your identity. Not your name, not an ID number, not an email address, and we do not run accounts at all. You pick a plan, pay, and the eSIM appears on screen. That applies to everything we sell, everywhere we sell it, and it is not something we will trade away later.

So there is no CURP field on our checkout for the simple reason that there is no checkout field about you at all. If you want the longer argument for why a provider can lawfully work this way, we wrote it up separately in why no-KYC eSIMs are legal, and the country-by-country picture is in SIM registration laws by country.

The suspension calendar

Mexican carriers work through unlinked lines by the last digit of the phone number. After each date the carrier has 72 hours to suspend. A suspended line still reaches emergency services and the carrier's own helpdesk, and normal service comes back once the line is registered.

Calendar published by the regulator in June 2026, replacing an earlier single cutoff. Check your carrier for the current position before relying on a date here.

This is not the registry the Supreme Court struck down

You may remember that Mexico tried this once before and lost. In 2021 it created PANAUT, a national mobile user registry that collected fingerprints and other biometric data into a central government database. The Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in April 2022, holding that it failed a proportionality test and violated privacy and personal data protection.

The 2026 requirement is a different instrument, and the differences are the point: it asks for a CURP and an official ID rather than biometrics, and the link is held by the carriers rather than assembled into a central state registry. That design is why the 2022 ruling does not reach it. Individual legal challenges have been filed, but none has stopped the scheme, and it is being enforced now. Anyone still telling you Mexico has no registration requirement is working from the old ruling.

Who this is actually for

We would rather you buy the right thing or nothing. A PikaSim eSIM fits if:

• You are travelling to Mexico and want data on arrival without handing a passport to a carrier kiosk.
• You want a second, private data line alongside a Mexican number you keep registered normally.
• You need working data during the gap while you sort out a suspended line.

It does not fit if you are looking to replace a Mexican line permanently. Per gigabyte it costs more than a local plan, it is sold for travel rather than indefinite use in one country, and the operators we buy capacity from apply fair-use limits to continuous roaming. If your plan is to run your whole digital life in Mexico on a foreign data plan forever, that is not the product we are selling you.

If you do want to register your Mexican line

Do it through your own carrier, which is the only party that can link your number. Telcel, AT&T Mexico, Movistar, Bait and the virtual operators each publish their own route, usually in the carrier app, by SMS, on their website or in a shop, and you will need your CURP and an official ID. It is free. We are not going to pretend that registering is a trap, and if keeping your number matters to you then registering is the thing to do.

Questions people actually ask

This page describes publicly available Mexican rules as of October 2026 and explains who they are written to bind. It is information about a data product, not legal advice, and you are responsible for complying with the law where you use the service. Rules change: the regulator has said it will address international roaming lines after the 2026 World Cup.