SIM Registration Act Philippines (RA 11934): Rules and Reporting

Direct Answer

The SIM Registration Act in the Philippines remains in force in 2026: new SIMs must be registered before activation under Republic Act No. 11934. The registration window for SIMs that existed before the law closed on 25 July 2023, so those unregistered numbers cannot now be registered through that expired window. RA 11934 also governs registration-data confidentiality, false registration, spoofing and the transfer of registered SIMs.

Key Takeaways

SIMs are sold deactivated. Registration is a pre-condition to activation, not an afterthought (Section 4).
The registration window for pre-existing SIMs closed on 25 July 2023. It has not reopened.
Registration is free. Section 6 states it “shall be implemented at no cost to the end-users.”
Your registration data is absolutely confidential under Section 9. A public telecommunications entity may release your name and address only on a subpoena, a court order, a legal obligation, or your written consent.
Minors register through a parent or guardian. Tourist SIMs are valid for 30 days only.
Penalties run from fines on telcos that refuse to register a SIM, up to imprisonment of no less than six years for spoofing.
The Act obliges your telco to give you a way to report fraudulent texts and calls, and to deactivate the SIM behind them after investigation.

Decision Snapshot

Question	Answer
Do I still need to register a SIM I buy today?	Yes. A new SIM is sold deactivated and is activated only on completed registration.
Can I still register an old SIM that was deactivated in 2023?	No. The reactivation window was five days from automatic deactivation and has long lapsed.
Does registration cost anything?	No. Section 6 requires it to be at no cost to the end-user.
Can I register more than one SIM under my name?	Yes, using the same valid government-issued ID.
Can my telco give my details to someone who asks?	No. Disclosure requires a subpoena, court order, statutory obligation, or your written consent.
Can a minor register a SIM?	Only in the name of a parent or guardian, who must consent and register it.
Is failing to register a crime?	No. For an end-user the consequence is deactivation, not prosecution.
Is giving a fake identity to register a crime?	Yes. Six months to two years, or a fine of ₱100,000 to ₱300,000, or both.

What the SIM Registration Act Is

Republic Act No. 11934 is a short statute — seventeen sections — that does one structural thing: it attaches a verified identity to every mobile number in the Philippines. Before it, prepaid SIMs could be bought anonymously over the counter. Section 4 reverses that default. All SIMs sold by public telecommunications entities (PTEs), their agents or resellers “shall be in a deactivated state,” and are activated only once the end-user completes registration.

The Act was passed by both Houses on 28 September 2022 as a consolidation of Senate Bill No. 1310 and House Bill No. 14, and approved by President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr. on 10 October 2022. Section 17 sets effectivity at fifteen days after publication.

Section 2 states the purpose plainly: to “provide law enforcement agencies the tools to resolve crimes which involve its utilization and a platform to deter the commission of wrongdoings.” The Act is therefore best understood as an identity-attribution measure, not a content or fraud-prevention measure. That distinction matters for what it can and cannot deliver, discussed below.

Two agencies share the machinery. The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) promulgated the implementing rules under Section 12 and supervises PTE compliance. The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) sets the minimum information security standards PTEs must meet for the SIM Register, performs an annual audit of compliance, and holds the power to extend the registration period. The National Privacy Commission was a required consultee on the implementing rules, and the Data Privacy Act of 2012 continues to apply to the personal data collected.

How the Registration Window Actually Ran

The Philippine SIM registration deadline for pre-existing SIMs was 25 July 2023, and the registration window has not reopened. RA 11934 set the original registration period, the NTC implementing rules opened registration platforms on 27 December 2022, and the DICT approved one 90-day extension before automatic deactivation began. The timeline below follows NTC issuances.

Date	What happened
28 September 2022	Passed by the Senate and the House of Representatives.
10 October 2022	Approved by the President.
27 October 2022	The Act takes effect, fifteen days after publication. The 180-day clock in Section 4 begins.
12 December 2022	NTC issues Memorandum Circular No. 001-12-2022, the implementing rules.
27 December 2022	The implementing rules take effect and registration platforms open.
25 April 2023	DICT issues a Memorandum approving the NTC’s recommendation, on the written requests of DITO, Globe and Smart, granting 90 additional days.
26 April 2023	The original 180-day period ends.
25 July 2023	The extended deadline ends. Unregistered SIMs are automatically deactivated.

Section 4 allowed the DICT to extend registration “for a period not exceeding one hundred twenty (120) days.” Only 90 of those 120 days were used. There is no provision in the Act permitting a second extension, and none was granted.

What Registration Requires

To register a new SIM in the Philippines under RA 11934, complete your telco’s electronic registration process before the SIM can be activated. Section 5 requires a control-numbered registration form submitted through the telco’s platform or website. The required personal information, accepted government-issued photo IDs and rules for minors, organisations and foreign nationals are set out below.

The information you supply

Full name, date of birth, sex, and address, together with the assigned mobile number and the SIM’s serial number. The form includes a declaration by the end-user that the identification documents presented are true and correct and that the person registering is the one who completed the form. That declaration is what converts a false registration into the offence in Section 11(d).

Accepted identification

Section 5(b) requires a valid government-issued ID with a photo, and lists seventeen examples. The list is expressly “not limited to” those items, so other valid government-issued photo ID also qualifies.

Accepted government-issued photo ID under Section 5(b)

Passport
Philippine Identification (PhilID)
Social Security System ID
Government Service Insurance System e-Card
Driver’s licence
National Bureau of Investigation clearance
Police clearance
Firearms’ License to Own and Possess ID
Professional Regulation Commission ID
Integrated Bar of the Philippines ID
Overseas Workers Welfare Administration ID
Bureau of Internal Revenue ID
Voter’s ID
Senior Citizen’s card
Unified Multi-purpose Identification card
Person with Disabilities card
Any other valid government-issued ID with photo

Minors, companies and foreign nationals

A SIM registered for a minor is registered in the name of the parent or guardian, who must both consent and carry out the registration. The number is, in law, the adult’s.

A juridical entity presents its certificate of registration plus a duly adopted resolution designating the authorised representative, or, for entities other than corporations, a special power of attorney.

Foreign nationals register their full name, nationality, passport number and Philippine address. Tourists admitted under Section 9(a) of Commonwealth Act No. 613 present a passport, proof of address in the Philippines, and a return or onward ticket showing the date and time of departure. Their SIMs are valid for thirty days only and are automatically deactivated on expiry. Foreign nationals on other visa types present a passport, proof of Philippine address, and as applicable an Alien Employment Permit from the Department of Labor and Employment, an ACR I-Card from the Bureau of Immigration, or school registration and ID for students.

The Act also required registration facilities to be established in remote areas with limited telecommunication or internet access within sixty days of effectivity, and the implementing rules direct PTEs to assist persons with disabilities, senior citizens, pregnant women and persons with special needs.

If Your SIM Was Deactivated

Direct answer: an old SIM deactivated after the July 2023 deadline cannot be recovered now. You need a new SIM, registered in the ordinary way.

The reason is a narrow window in the implementing rules that has long since closed. Section 5(a) of NTC Memorandum Circular No. 001-12-2022 provides that a deactivated SIM “may only be reactivated after registration; provided, however, that reactivation shall be made not later than five (5) days after such automatic deactivation.” Five days from deactivation, not five days from when you noticed.

The NTC’s own FAQs, published in January 2023, put it more bluntly: unregistered SIMs after the deadline “will be deactivated permanently” and “can no longer be used to avail mobile services such as voice calls, text, and data.” Read together, the position is that there was a short grace window immediately following automatic deactivation, and that once it lapsed the deactivation became permanent. For anyone reading this in 2026, only the second half of that sentence is still operative.

This matters more than it first appears. A mobile number is often the recovery channel for bank accounts, e-wallets and social media. If a number was lost in 2023 and someone else has since been assigned it, accounts still pointing at that number are exposed. If that describes your situation, see what to do when your personal data is exposed and identity theft in the Philippines.

Separately, if you lose a SIM or it is stolen, Section 6 of the Act requires you to inform your PTE immediately, and the PTE must bar the SIM straight away and deactivate it within twenty-four hours of the report. On the death of an end-user, the immediate family, relatives or guardian report the fact to the PTE.

Who Can See Your Registration Data

Section 9 is the strongest consumer protection in the Act. Information obtained in the registration process “shall be treated as absolutely confidential and shall not be disclosed to any person.” The confidentiality attaches at the point of activation.

There are four exceptions, and disclosure under them is limited to the subscriber’s full name and address:

Compliance with a law obliging disclosure, consistent with the Data Privacy Act of 2012.
Compliance with a court order or legal process on a finding of probable cause.
Compliance with Section 10 of the Act.
Your written consent — and the Act expressly forbids making that waiver a condition of approving a subscription.

Section 10 is the route law enforcement actually uses, and its threshold is specific. A PTE must provide registration information only on a subpoena issued by a competent authority, pursuant to an investigation based on a sworn complaint that a specific mobile number was or is being used to commit a crime or as a means to commit a malicious, fraudulent or unlawful act, and that the complainant cannot ascertain the identity of the perpetrator. A PTE that discloses in compliance with the Act is shielded from administrative, civil and criminal liability.

Two retention rules sit alongside this. PTEs keep the relevant data for ten years from the deactivation of a number. And in the event of a cyber-attack on the SIM Register, the PTE must report the incident to the DICT within twenty-four hours of detection — a duty that runs in parallel with, and does not replace, breach notification under the Data Privacy Act. Section 14 directs that any doubt in interpreting the Act be resolved “in a manner that accords the highest respect for privacy.”

For the wider picture of what you can demand from an organisation holding your data, see your data privacy rights and invasion of privacy laws in the Philippines.

Reporting Scam Texts and Calls

Direct answer: report the message to your own telco first. The Act obliges every PTE to run a reporting channel and to deactivate the SIM behind a fraudulent text or call after investigation.

Section 6 of the Act requires PTEs to “provide user-friendly reporting mechanisms for their respective end-users upon the latter’s receipt of any potentially fraudulent text or call,” and, “upon due investigation,” to deactivate the offending SIM either temporarily or permanently. Section 10(k) of the implementing rules repeats the duty and extends the same channel to reporting a change of information, a lost or stolen SIM, or the death of a registered end-user.

Two points follow. First, the telco channel is the mechanism the statute actually builds — it is faster than a criminal complaint and it is the only route that ends in the sender’s SIM being switched off. Second, reporting to your telco is not a substitute for a criminal complaint where you have lost money or been defamed, threatened or impersonated.

Where money has moved or a crime is alleged, the investigating bodies are the PNP Anti-Cybercrime Group and the NBI Cybercrime Division. Our cybercrime reporting directory sets out which agency handles what, and text scams and smishing covers how these messages are constructed and what evidence to preserve before you delete anything.

Note that the offence of spoofing — transmitting misleading or inaccurate information about the source of a call or text with intent to defraud, cause harm or wrongfully obtain anything of value — is defined in Section 3(g) and penalised in Section 11(e). It is an offence under this Act in its own right, separate from the computer-related fraud and identity theft offences in the Cybercrime Prevention Act.

Penalties

Section 11 sets out seven categories. Note who each one is aimed at: paragraphs (a) to (c) bind telcos and their staff, while (d), (e) and (g) can be committed by any person.

Section	Conduct	Who	Penalty
11(a)	Failure or refusal to register a SIM without valid reason, despite the end-user complying	PTE	First offence ₱100,000–₱300,000; second ₱300,000–₱500,000; third and subsequent ₱500,000–₱1,000,000 per offence
11(b)	Breach of confidentiality — revealing or disclosing end-user data	PTE, agent or employee	Fine of ₱500,000–₱4,000,000
11(c)	Breach of confidentiality through negligence	PTE, agent or employee	Fine of ₱500,000–₱4,000,000
11(d)	Providing false or fictitious information, or using a fictitious identity or fraudulent identification documents, to register a SIM	Any person	Imprisonment of 6 months–2 years, or a fine of ₱100,000–₱300,000, or both
11(e)	Spoofing a registered SIM	Any person	Imprisonment of no less than 6 years, or a fine of ₱200,000, or both
11(f)	Sale of a stolen SIM	PTE, agent, reseller or entity	Imprisonment of 6 months–2 years, or a fine of ₱100,000–₱300,000, or both
11(g)	Sale or transfer of a registered SIM without complying with the registration requirement	Any person	Imprisonment of 6 months–6 years, or a fine of ₱100,000–₱300,000, or both

Three qualifications apply across all of them. Anyone who abets or aids in committing an offence under the Act is liable as a co-principal. Where the offender is a corporation, partnership or other juridical person, the penalty falls on the responsible officers who participated in the offence or whose gross negligence allowed it. And prosecution under this Act is without prejudice to liability under the Revised Penal Code or other special laws — so a spoofed message used to run a scam can attract charges under more than one statute.

Section 11(g) deserves particular attention because it catches conduct people do not think of as criminal. Selling or handing over a registered SIM to someone else, without putting it through registration in their name, is an offence carrying up to six years. The National Privacy Commission has publicly warned about schemes offering payment to register SIMs for onward sale, citing this exact provision.

Complaints for these offences are filed, under Section 21 of the implementing rules, “before the relevant agency, prosecution office or court having competent jurisdiction.”

What the Act Does Not Do

An honest account of this statute has to include its boundaries, because a good deal of public commentary treats it as an anti-scam law. It is not.

It does not screen message content. Nothing in the Act filters, blocks or inspects text messages. It attaches an identity to the sender’s SIM, which helps after the fact.
It does not reach messages sent from outside the SIM system. Scams delivered over internet messaging platforms, email or social media are untouched by it.
It does not stop a determined offender from registering under a false or borrowed identity. That conduct is criminalised by Section 11(d) and (g), which is a deterrent, not a technical barrier.
It does not give you a private right to your harasser’s identity. Section 10 routes disclosure through a subpoena based on a sworn complaint, not through a request to the telco.
It does not create a penalty for an end-user who simply did not register. The consequence was deactivation.

Whether registration has reduced the volume of scam messaging in the Philippines is not something that can be measured cleanly from publicly available data. Reported figures move with detection and reporting practices as much as with underlying activity, and no official series isolates the effect of this Act. Treat confident claims in either direction with caution.

Common Mistakes

Assuming postpaid subscribers were exempt. They were not. PTEs included existing postpaid data in the SIM Register, but the implementing rules required postpaid subscribers to confirm their information through the registration platform to complete registration.
Paying a “registration fee.” Registration is free by statute. Anyone charging for it is running a scam.
Registering a SIM for someone else as a favour. If the SIM is then handed over, that is Section 11(g) territory.
Treating the telco’s confidentiality duty as absolute in practice. It is strong, but Section 10 disclosure on subpoena is real, and the data is retained for ten years after deactivation.
Forgetting to update a change of details. Section 6 requires the end-user to inform the PTE of any change in their information, and the PTE to note the change in its database.
Letting a tourist SIM lapse without planning for it. Thirty days, then automatic deactivation.

FAQs

Is SIM registration still open?

For new SIMs, yes — registration is how a new SIM gets activated, and that continues indefinitely. The special window for SIMs that existed before the law closed on 25 July 2023 and has not reopened.

Can I still recover a number that was deactivated in 2023?

No. The implementing rules allowed reactivation only within five days of automatic deactivation. That period has long lapsed and the NTC has described post-deadline deactivation as permanent.

How many SIMs can one person register?

The Act sets no numerical cap. The NTC’s FAQs confirm multiple SIMs may be registered using the same valid government-issued ID, provided all of them are registered under that person’s name.

Can my telco give my name and address to a private person who asks?

No. Section 9 makes registration data absolutely confidential. Disclosure of your full name and address is permitted only under a legal obligation consistent with the Data Privacy Act, a court order or legal process on a finding of probable cause, a Section 10 subpoena, or your written consent.

What can police obtain, and how?

Under Section 10, a PTE provides registration information only on a subpoena from a competent authority, issued in an investigation based on a sworn complaint that the specific number was used in a crime or to commit a malicious, fraudulent or unlawful act, and where the complainant cannot identify the perpetrator.

Is it illegal to sell my registered SIM?

Selling or transferring a registered SIM without complying with the registration requirement is an offence under Section 11(g), punishable by imprisonment of six months to six years, or a fine of ₱100,000 to ₱300,000, or both.

Does the Act cover eSIMs?

Yes. Section 3(f) defines SIM to include “e-SIMs and other variations thereof.”

What should I do about a scam text right now?

Do not reply or tap the link. Preserve the message, the sender’s number and the timestamp before deleting anything, then report it through your telco’s reporting channel. If money moved or a crime is alleged, file with the PNP Anti-Cybercrime Group or the NBI.

Does registration make my data safer?

It creates new obligations — PTEs must meet DICT minimum information security standards, submit to an annual DICT audit, and report a cyber-attack on the SIM Register to the DICT within twenty-four hours. It also concentrates identity data in telco databases, which is a risk of its own. Both things are true.

Official Sources

Republic Act No. 11934, “Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) Registration Act,” approved 10 October 2022 — Senate of the Philippines Legislative Reference Bureau: issuances-library.senate.gov.ph
NTC Memorandum Circular No. 001-12-2022, “Rules and Regulations Implementing Republic Act No. 11934,” 12 December 2022
NTC Memorandum Order No. 005-04-2023, extending the SIM registration period by 90 days to 25 July 2023, National Telecommunications Commission
National Telecommunications Commission, “FAQs on the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) Registration Act,” January 2023
National Privacy Commission, Public Advisory on registering SIM cards for the purpose of sale, 31 August 2023: privacy.gov.ph
Republic Act No. 10173, Data Privacy Act of 2012 — National Privacy Commission: privacy.gov.ph/data-privacy-act

Last materially reviewed: 10 September 2026.

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