If you live in the United States and are using an iPhone or any other smartphone that was locked to its carrier, it was a pain to unlock an iPhone. You had to either jailbreak your iPhone to use Ultrasn0w, a software-based method to unlock iPhone or you had to use IMEI based unlocking solution.
But here’s some good news for you. Starting from February 2015, you can easily unlock your phone through your carrier.
The process of unlocking phones comes thanks to the new unlocking standards when the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act became law, which state the conditions under which a carrier will have to unlock your device.
If you are on T-Mobile, Sprint, U.S. Cellular, Verizon or AT&T, your iPhone or any other smartphone is qualified for being unlocked from February 11, 2015. However, to be eligible for being unlocked, you must have already paid in full for your device or your contract must have ended. If you are in Military and will be deployed overseas, you can show the papers to your carrier and unlock your smartphone irrespective of whether you have paid for it in full or not.
A few years back it was possible to unlock the iPhone using software such as Ultrasn0w, but Apple has made it impossible to unlock iPhone using software these days. In 2019, there are only two options available to unlock your iPhone i.e. either through your carrier, or an IMEI unlock. Both are permanent, don’t require a jailbreak and work with all iPhone models and OS versions.
The price to unlock iPhone varies based on your carrier. They support all iPhone models such as iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR, iPhone X, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone SE, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5C, iPhone 5, iPhone 4S and iPhone 4.
Check out our post for all the details on how to unlock iPhone to use with a different carrier.
Last updated: May 16, 2019.
