L'équipe Texto SMS Gratuit
30 August 2026 · 11 min read
Introduction: the €2 phantom line that has been lingering for four years
Do the exercise right now — it takes thirty seconds. Open your banking app, look up the direct debits from the last three months and count the entries bearing a telecom operator's name. In most French households, the numbers don't add up. There's the main plan, of course. Then a second one, often €2 or €4.99, taken out during a promotion and never cancelled. Sometimes a tablet SIM at €5 a month for a device that hasn't left the drawer since the winter of 2023. And increasingly often, a €3 "connected device" line billed for a watch that was sold long ago.
None of these amounts is spectacular. That is precisely the problem: secondary telecom subscriptions are designed to stay below the threshold of attention. A €4.99 monthly plan works out at €59.88 a year. Three dormant lines in the same household easily add up to €150–€250 a year paid for a service that delivers absolutely nothing.
This guide is not an argument for cancelling everything. Some second lines are perfectly justified — separating work from personal life, having a backup network, protecting your main number. The aim is to sort things out: work out what you are actually paying, distinguish useful lines from phantom lines, and know when an eSIM is a better option than a full subscription.
Step 1: list every active line you have
The first hurdle is that nobody spontaneously knows how many lines they hold. Subscriptions are taken out at different times, sometimes in a partner's name, sometimes through a family offer that groups several numbers on a single bill.
Three complementary methods will give you the full list.
The banking method. Export twelve months of statements and filter on operator names. Careful: the labels are not always explicit. Some payment providers appear under a company name the general public has never heard of. Searching for the exact label is usually enough to identify it.
The customer account method. Log in to each operator's customer area with the household's main email address, then with the secondary addresses. Multi-line offers often group several numbers under a single account, and the "My lines" or "My contracts" tab displays them all.
The Arcep method. If you still have doubts about whether a line exists in your name, you can ask each operator, under the right of access provided for by the GDPR, for the list of contracts taken out under your identity. They must answer within one month. It is also the only way to detect a line fraudulently opened in your name, a phenomenon on the rise as sign-ups become fully digital.
Record everything in a simple table: number, operator, monthly amount, sign-up date, actual usage observed over the last three months. That last column is the most important — and the most painful.
Step 2: identify the four types of second line
Not all secondary lines are equal. They need to be classified before you make any decisions.
The imposed work line
Your employer provides you with a phone and a line. You pay nothing, but you carry two devices around. The cost is ergonomic, not financial. Except in specific cases — regulated sectors, healthcare professions, sensitive roles — this constraint can often be eased with a dual SIM smartphone, provided you get the green light from the company's IT department.
The deliberate separation line
You opened a second line so you wouldn't have to give your personal number to online shops, classified ad platforms or dating apps. That is a perfectly rational privacy decision. A personal number that circulates ends up in marketing databases that get resold, and getting it removed afterwards is an uphill battle. This line is worth keeping, but probably not in the form of a conventional monthly subscription.
The connected device line
SIMs for tablets, watches, GPS trackers, dashcams, alarm systems. These lines cost between €2 and €6 a month. They are useful as long as the device is in use. The trap is that they almost always outlive the device: nobody thinks to cancel the line when the watch goes off for recycling.
The phantom line
Taken out during a promotional campaign, kept "just in case", never used. It has no justification whatsoever. It is the first one to cut.
Step 3: the true cost of a dormant line
The monthly amount is only the visible part. An inactive line generates three additional costs that are rarely calculated.
The price-increase cost. Operators revise their tariffs regularly. A line you don't keep an eye on is a line whose increase notification you will miss — and whose increase you will therefore not contest within the legal window. A €2 plan taken out in 2021 may cost €6 today without the account holder ever noticing.
The attack-surface cost. Every active number is an entry point. A line whose texts you never check may receive verification codes, impersonation attempts or serve as a vector for SIM-swap fraud without you noticing for several weeks.
The residual commitment cost. Some secondary lines were taken out with a subsidised handset and carry a minimum term. Cancelling early can trigger a settlement balance. Always check this point before acting.
Here is the order of magnitude of the annual waste depending on the number of dormant lines:
| Dormant lines | Typical monthly cost | Annual cost | Over 3 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 line at €4.99 | €4.99 | €59.88 | €179.64 |
| 2 lines (€4.99 + €3) | €7.99 | €95.88 | €287.64 |
| 3 lines (€4.99 + €3 + €5) | €12.99 | €155.88 | €467.64 |
Over three years, a household with three dormant lines funds the equivalent of a brand-new mid-range smartphone — for a service nobody has used even once.
Step 4: merge lines with dual SIM and eSIM
This is where technology has genuinely changed the game over the past two or three years.
What a dual SIM smartphone allows in 2026
Virtually every smartphone sold in France since 2022 supports at least one physical SIM plus an eSIM, and a growing number of models can store several eSIM profiles simultaneously (with one or two active at a time depending on the device). In practice, that means a single phone can carry both your personal and your work line, with distinct ringtones, separate do-not-disturb rules and a per-contact choice of line.
The benefits are immediate:
- a single device to charge, carry and protect;
- the ability to switch mobile data to whichever line has the best coverage in a given place;
- service continuity if one of the two operators suffers a network outage.
If you have never used this feature, you'll find it in the settings under "SIM cards", "SIM management" or "Mobile data" depending on the manufacturer. Setting it up takes fifteen minutes and is done once and for all.
When a second device is still preferable
Dual SIM is not for everyone. There are three cases where two separate devices remain the right choice.
- Strict legal separation. Some professions must guarantee a watertight barrier between work and personal communications. Sharing a single handset makes that harder to demonstrate.
- Remote management imposed by the employer. A fleet management tool installed on your personal device gives the company administration capabilities that few employees would knowingly accept.
- Resilience. A professional whose business depends on their phone is well advised to keep a second device, however basic. A basic dual SIM mobile phone, kept charged in a bag, costs under fifty euros and prevents a complete standstill in the event of breakage or theft.
Downgrading instead of cancelling: ultra-low-commitment plans
For a privacy separation line you don't want to give up, the right strategy isn't cancellation but downgrading. Entry-level no-commitment offers, around €2 for a few hours of calls and one or two gigabytes, are more than enough for receiving codes and making the odd call. Moving a secondary line from €10 down to €2 delivers the same saving as cancelling in two cases out of three, without losing the number.
Step 5: cancelling cleanly, without losing what matters
Cancelling a mobile line is a straightforward right to exercise, but a few precautions will spare you unpleasant surprises.
Check the number's invisible uses. Before cutting it off, list the services that use this number as a second authentication factor: bank, email, social networks, tax office. Each service must be updated before cancellation, otherwise you will find yourself locked out of your own account. This is by far the most common and the most time-consuming mistake.
Get your RIO code if you want to keep the number. Dial 3179 from the line concerned: the code is given to you free of charge, first verbally and then by text. It allows you to port the number to another operator rather than lose it for good. A number cancelled without porting goes back into Arcep's common pool after a quarantine period, and may be reassigned to a stranger.
Send a written request. Even though most operators accept online cancellation, a registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt remains the only enforceable proof in the event of a dispute over the effective date. A pack of ready-to-use registered letter envelopes costs a few euros and saves half an hour at the post office counter.
Check the final direct debit. Compare the closing bill with the notice period announced. Cancellation fees are regulated and an operator may only charge fees that are genuinely justified and provided for in the contract.
The special case of connected device lines
Device SIMs deserve separate treatment because they slip past our usual reflexes.
A cellular smartwatch, a pet tracker, a home alarm or a standalone camera use very little data but need permanent connectivity. Operators bill these lines at between €2 and €6 a month, often on top of a main plan.
Three checks are needed every year:
- Does the device still exist? Sold, broken, forgotten: in that case, cancel immediately.
- Is cellular connectivity really being used? Many devices work perfectly over Wi-Fi or via the smartphone's Bluetooth. A GPS luggage tracker that stays within range of a phone doesn't need a dedicated subscription.
- Is the offer still competitive? Prices for device lines have fallen sharply. A line taken out in 2022 is often overpriced compared with today's offers.
For occasional mobile use — a laptop to connect while travelling a few days a month — a portable 4G router powered by a top-up eSIM costs less over the year than a permanent data plan, and lends itself more easily to shared family use.
The annual routine that prevents all of this
The best way never to have to repeat the audit described here is to turn it into a light habit.
- Once a year, on a fixed date, open the list of your lines and check that each one has been used in the last twelve months.
- Turn on billing alerts in each customer area: they flag increases and overages.
- Note commitment end dates in a shared calendar. A reminder two months before a commitment ends lets you renegotiate at the right moment rather than having renewal imposed on you.
- Keep the evidence. Contracts, cancellation letters, acknowledgements of receipt: an expanding file for administrative documents will do, and you'll be glad you have it the day a direct debit keeps going three months after a cancellation.
In summary
The proliferation of mobile lines isn't an individual accident: it is the mechanical result of ten years of promotional offers, top-up plans and connected devices sold with their own subscription. Operators have no commercial interest in reminding you that a line is lying dormant.
Three moves are enough to take back control: list every line using your bank statements and customer accounts, classify each one as useful, downgradable or phantom, and use dual SIM to merge whatever can be merged. Together, the three easily free up €100–€200 a year in an average household, without losing any convenience.
And if your main goal was to shield your primary number from marketing calls, note that lighter alternatives to a second subscription exist: online text-message services let you communicate occasionally without exposing your personal line — or adding another line to your bank statement.
Useful sources and references: Arcep (number allocation and portability, mobile services observatory), French Consumer Code, articles L224-33 et seq. (amendment and termination of electronic communications contracts), CNIL (right of access to personal data and contracts taken out), UFC-Que Choisir (billing disputes and cancellation fees).
