Business call forwarding: business phone number forwarding that rings your cell, your team, or both
Business call forwarding sends calls placed to your business number on to another phone, usually a cell, so the call gets answered when nobody is at a desk. On a carrier line you turn it on with a star code, most often *72 followed by the destination number, and off with *73. On a cloud phone system it is a routing rule you set in a browser, which is what lets one number ring several people at once, follow business hours, and send unanswered calls to voicemail instead of to a personal mailbox.
Almost everyone starts by forwarding the business line to one cell phone, and it works right up until the day that cell is in a meeting, or its owner quits and takes the callbacks with them. The useful question is not how to switch forwarding on. It is what should happen on the second ring, and who else should get a shot at the call.
FORWARD TO ANY US NUMBER · RING SEVERAL PHONES AT ONCE · FROM $15/USER/MO
Last updated July 2026
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*72
The star code that turns forwarding on for most US landline and cable business lines. *73 turns it off
Any US number
Forward to a cell, a home line, a colleague, or an answering service, and change it in seconds
All at once
Ring several phones simultaneously instead of one, so the first person free picks up
~5 min
From signing up to a live number with forwarding rules already set
What good business call forwarding actually gives you
01
One destination is a single point of failure
Classic forwarding is one number to one number. If that phone is busy, dead, or in a tunnel, the call lands in a personal voicemail box nobody else can hear. Forwarding that rings a group fixes the common case: three cells ring together, the first person free answers, and the ones who did not answer see a missed call from the business line rather than nothing at all.
02
Rules beat codes
A star code is a switch. It is on or it is off, and to change where calls go you have to be standing at the line that owns it. A routing rule is a sentence: ring the office for fifteen seconds, then the on-call cell, then take a message, and skip all of that on Sundays. You edit it from wherever you are, including from the phone in your pocket.
03
Your team keeps their own numbers
Forwarding to a personal cell means the person, not the company, ends up holding the relationship. Callers hit redial on the number that called them back, and that number leaves when they do. Calls that ride through a business number stay attached to the business, and callbacks go out showing the business number.
04
You can see what forwarding is costing you
Nobody audits a forward. Calls vanish into a cell and the only record is somebody's personal call log. When forwarding runs through your own number you get the missed calls, the times of day they cluster, and the voicemails as readable text, which is usually the first time an owner learns how many calls the after-hours forward was quietly dropping.
How to set up call forwarding on a business number
Decide what you are forwarding from
The setup is different depending on whether the number lives on a carrier line, a mobile plan, or a cloud account. If it is a copper or cable business line, forwarding is a feature of that line and you keep paying for it. If it is a cloud number, forwarding is a setting and there is no second line underneath.
Set the primary destination and a timeout
Pick where the call goes and, more importantly, how long it rings before moving on. Fifteen to twenty seconds is about four rings, which is long enough for someone to reach a phone and short enough that a caller has not given up. Anything past twenty-five seconds and most callers hang up before the fallback ever fires.
Add the fallback, then the voicemail
Decide what happens when the first destination does not answer. A second cell, a ring group, or an answering service all work. What should not happen is a drop into a personal voicemail greeting, because the caller cannot tell they reached the right company. End the chain at a business voicemail box your team can all read.
Set the hours, then test it from an outside phone
Forwarding that never turns off means somebody answers a work call at 11pm and a caller gets a groggy hello. Put the schedule in, then call your own business number from a phone that is not on the account and listen to the whole path: the ring, the fallback, the greeting. Test it again after any change.
Three things worth knowing before you set up forwarding
Each from a primary source rather than a vendor blog, because the forwarding advice on the open web is mostly recycled.
Your number
Under FCC local number portability rules you can keep your telephone number when you change providers in the same area, and a carrier cannot refuse to release it because you still owe money on the account. That is the alternative to forwarding forever.
Source: FCC, Keeping Your Telephone Number When Changing Service Providers
83.7%
The share of US business wireline telephone connections that were already VoIP rather than traditional switched lines as of June 2025. For most businesses, forwarding is now a setting in a browser rather than a code dialed on a handset.
$64.95
The monthly rate Comcast publishes for a single-product Business Voice Mobility line in its California business pricing list effective May 1, 2026, or $44.95 bundled. That is what an unused line kept alive purely to forward calls can cost.
Source: Comcast Business Voice Service, California Business Pricing List
Five ways to forward a business number, and what each one really costs
Every option below works. They differ in what they cost, how many people can answer, and what happens the day the arrangement breaks. Prices are US entry rates verified July 2026 and change often.
| Approach | What it costs | Who can answer | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Star code on the carrier line you already have | Usually included with the line | One destination at a time | You keep paying for the original line forever, and changing the destination means dialing a code from that line |
| The carrier portal or business app | Included where the carrier offers it | One or a few destinations | Codes and screens differ per product, and conditional rules still mean a support ticket at several carriers |
| Forward straight to a personal cell | Free, but the cell becomes the business line | One person | Callbacks go out from the personal number and callers save it. When that person leaves, the relationship goes too |
| A cloud business number with routing rules | $10 to $30 per user per month | The whole team, in order or all at once | Calls need an internet connection somewhere in the chain, which is exactly why cell destinations make good failover |
| Port the number to a cloud system and stop forwarding | Porting is free at most providers, then the seat price | The whole team | A standard port takes a few business days, and you must not cancel the old line before it completes |
Swipe sideways for the full table
PHONER PRICES ARE OUR PUBLISHED LIST PRICES · COMPETITOR AND CARRIER PRICING VERIFIED JULY 2026 AND CHANGES OFTEN · RE-VERIFY BEFORE YOU BUY
Call forwarding star codes, by the kind of line you are forwarding
Star codes are not standardized in the US, and the single biggest source of confusion is that mobile and landline networks use two different families of code. Below is what each family generally uses. Check your own provider's star code guide before you rely on one of these, because carriers do override them.
| Kind of line | Turn forwarding on | Turn it off | What to know |
|---|---|---|---|
| Landline or cable business line | *72 then the 10-digit number | *73 | The forward happens at the switch, so it keeps working even if the phone at your desk is unplugged or the power is out |
| Verizon Wireless | *72 then the 10-digit number | *73 | Verizon uses the landline-style code on its wireless network rather than the GSM one, which is why generic advice often fails on other carriers |
| AT&T and T-Mobile mobile lines | *21* then the number then # | ##21# | This is the GSM call-forward-unconditional code. It is dialed on the handset itself and applies to that handset only |
| Busy or no-answer forwarding | Varies: *71, *90 and *92 are all in use | Varies by carrier | Conditional forwarding is where codes differ the most between providers. Assume nothing and look yours up |
| Comcast, Spectrum, Cox and AT&T business products | A star code or the account portal, depending on the product | The same route | There is no one code that works across all four, and several have moved the setting into an online portal or app |
| A cloud phone system | A rule in the browser, nothing to dial | Toggle the rule off | Because it is a rule rather than a switch, you can vary the destination by time of day and by which number was dialed |
Swipe sideways for the full table
STAR CODES ARE SET BY EACH CARRIER AND ARE NOT A NATIONAL STANDARD · CONFIRM YOURS WITH YOUR PROVIDER BEFORE YOU DEPEND ON IT
What call forwarding will not fix
Four limits worth knowing before you build your whole phone setup on a forward. Each one has sent a buyer somewhere else, and each is easier to read now than to discover in month three.
Forwarding does not move your number, it only redirects it
A forward is a redirect sitting on top of a line you still own and still pay for. Cancel the underlying line and the forward dies with it. If the goal is to stop paying a carrier, forwarding is the wrong tool and porting is the right one: the number itself moves to the new provider and the old bill ends.
Caller ID does not always survive the hop
When a call is forwarded, what the destination phone shows varies by network. Some paths show the original caller, some show the forwarding number, and a few show both across two fields. If you need to know who is calling before you answer, test the exact path you plan to use rather than trusting a feature list.
A forwarded call still needs somewhere to end
Forwarding decides where a call goes, not what happens when nobody picks up. Without a business voicemail box at the end of the chain, callers land in whatever personal mailbox the destination phone happens to have, often with a greeting that names a person rather than the company. That is the single most common way forwarding loses a lead.
We are not an answering service
We forward calls to your people. We do not employ receptionists who answer on your behalf, and we do not have an AI receptionist that holds a conversation with your callers. If what you actually want is a human picking up when your team cannot, that is a different product with a different price, and we would rather point you at one than pretend.
Who sets up business call forwarding, and what for
Contractors
Nobody is in an office to answer a wall phone, so the published number rings the crew's cells in order and voicemail arrives as readable text from the truck.
Contractor phone systemReal estate
One number on every sign and listing, forwarded to the agent showing a property, with the lead history kept by the brokerage rather than by a personal handset.
Real estate phone systemLaw firms
After-hours calls forwarded to the attorney on call, without a client ever learning a personal cell number they will use again at midnight.
Law firm phone systemSmall businesses
The classic setup done properly: the shop line rings the counter first, then the owner's cell, then takes a message under the business name.
Small business phone systemInsurance agencies
Claims calls that cannot wait for Monday, forwarded to whoever is covering the weekend, on a rotation that changes without calling the carrier.
Insurance agency phone systemProperty management
Maintenance emergencies forwarded to the on-call number after 6pm and back to the office at 8am, on a schedule set once instead of dialed nightly.
Property management phone systemForwarding, or moving the number: which one you actually need
The honest test is whether you plan to keep paying for the line underneath. Forwarding is a redirect layered on a service you still own, so it makes sense when the original line has a reason to exist: a fax that still runs on it, a lease that requires it, a carrier contract with months left. When the only reason the line still exists is that calls to it get forwarded somewhere useful, you are paying a monthly fee for a redirect. At that point number porting moves the number itself and the old bill stops.
The other decision people conflate with forwarding is what happens when more than one person should get the call. Forwarding in the strict sense is one to one. What most small teams actually want is a ring group, where several phones ring at the same time or in a set order and whoever is free takes it. That is also the setup that survives a vacation, because you are not editing a forward every time somebody is out. If you want the call sorted before it rings anybody, an IVR phone menu asks the caller what they need first.
Forwarding to cell phones is also the most underrated form of disaster recovery, and it is worth setting up before you need it. Cloud calling depends on an internet connection, so the failure people worry about is the office losing service. The answer is to make cell numbers the fallback destination, since a call that cannot reach a laptop can still reach a phone on a mobile network. The practical version of that plan is covered on the guide to forwarding business calls to a cell phone, and the connection requirements are on the internet speed for VoIP page.
Finally, price the whole arrangement rather than the forwarding feature, because every provider includes forwarding and none of them charge for it directly. What costs money is the line or seat the forward sits on. A carrier line kept alive to forward calls can run $45 to $65 a month with fees, while a cloud seat that owns the number outright starts around $15. The business phone system cost breakdown does that arithmetic line by line, and the ranked list of business phone providers says plainly where a competitor is the better buy.
Business call forwarding: the questions buyers actually search
On a carrier line, dial *72 from that line, enter your 10-digit cell number when prompted, and wait for the confirmation tone. Dial *73 to turn it off. On a cloud phone system you add your cell as a destination in the browser, set how long it rings first, and choose what happens if you do not answer. Test it from an outside phone either way.
Business call forwarding is a feature that automatically sends calls placed to your business number on to another phone, such as a cell, a home line, a colleague, or an answering service. It exists so calls get answered when nobody is at the desk the number was originally tied to. It can be permanent, scheduled by hour, or conditional on the first phone being busy or unanswered.
Forwarding itself is almost never a separate charge. Every major US provider includes it in the base plan, so what you pay for is the line or seat it sits on. That is $10 to $30 per user per month for a cloud number, or $20 to $65 per line for a carrier business line. The costly mistake is keeping an unused carrier line alive just to run a forward.
*72 turns call forwarding on for most US landline and cable business lines, followed by the 10-digit destination number, and *73 turns it off. AT&T and T-Mobile mobile lines use the GSM codes instead: *21* then the number then #, and ##21# to cancel. Verizon Wireless uses *72 and *73. Codes are set per carrier, so confirm yours.
Not with a plain star-code forward, which sends calls to one destination. To reach several people you need a ring group, where the phones ring at the same time or in a set order and the first person to pick up gets the call. Ring groups are a cloud phone system feature, included on the Phoner Team plan at $29 per user per month.
Not on the incoming call, but often on the callback. The caller dialed your business number, so that is what they know. The risk is what happens after: if you return the call from the cell itself, your personal number appears on their screen and gets saved. Calling back through a business phone app keeps the business number on the outbound call.
No, and the difference decides your bill. Forwarding redirects calls while leaving the number with your current provider, so you keep paying that provider. Porting moves ownership of the number to the new provider and ends the old service. If the only thing the old line still does is forward, porting is the cheaper answer and it is free at most providers.
Yes on a cloud phone system, generally no with a star code. Star codes are an on or off switch that somebody has to dial. A cloud system stores business hours, so calls can reach the office until 6pm, roll to an on-call cell after that, and go straight to voicemail on Sundays, without anyone touching a phone to make the change.
Dial *73 from the line that has forwarding switched on, and listen for the confirmation tone. On AT&T and T-Mobile mobile lines dial ##21# instead. If you cannot get a dial tone on the original line, most carriers can clear the forward from your online account or by phone, and on a cloud system you switch the rule off in the browser.
It depends on where the forward lives. A forward configured at your carrier's switch keeps working during an outage at your office, because the redirect happens on their network. A cloud phone system also keeps routing during your outage, since your number lives in their network too, which is why forwarding to cell phones is the standard failover plan.
Forwarding is included free inside paid plans, but a business number that exists only to be forwarded still has to be paid for by somebody. Free consumer options exist and generally cap you at one user, one destination, and no support commitment. For a business line customers rely on, the cost is the seat, and paid plans start around $10 to $15 per user per month.
Keep reading
BN-01
Business phone number
Get the local or toll-free number the forwarding rules will run on.
Business phone numberVN-01
Virtual phone number
A number with no line underneath it, which is what makes rules possible.
Virtual phone numberAP-01
Business phone app
Answer and return forwarded calls without showing your personal number.
business phone appCF-01 FORWARDING · Your line is open
Forwarding that knows what to do on the second ring
Forward to any US number, ring several phones at once, change the destination by time of day, and end the chain in a voicemail box your whole team can read. From $15 per user per month, live in about five minutes, and porting your existing number is free.
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