Sophie
13 oktober 2026 · 12 min leestijd
You receive messages from your cousin in Madrid or your colleague in Mexico City without any trouble, but yours never leave? In the vast majority of cases this isn't an outage: sending internationally is a separate feature from receiving, and it is often disabled by default on prepaid lines, cheap no-contract plans and recently activated SIM cards. Reception, on the other hand, is always free and always open.
Updated 13 October 2026.
Why do I receive texts from abroad but can't send any?
Because the two operations don't follow the same commercial route. When a Spanish contact writes to you, their carrier pays for delivery to the French network: you have nothing to authorise and nothing to pay. When you are the one writing to a foreign number, your carrier has to bill outgoing international traffic, and that authorisation is a line setting the carrier can leave switched off.
This is the most common reason for failures, even before the number format. It is also the most misleading, because the failure is often silent: the message shows a spinning circle, then an exclamation mark, with no explicit error message at all.
The five real causes, from the most common to the rarest
| Cause | Typical symptom | Who can fix it |
|---|---|---|
| "International SMS" option not active on the line | Immediate failure to every country | The carrier (customer service / online account) |
| Badly formatted number (leading 0 kept, missing country code) | Failure to one single contact | You, in 10 seconds |
| Wrong message centre (SMSC) stored in the phone | No SMS leaves at all, not even within France | You, in the settings |
| Volume cap or anti-fraud block triggered | Sudden failure after several messages | The carrier |
| Filtering on the recipient carrier's side | Failure to one specific country or network | Neither you nor your carrier |
1. International sending is switched off on your line
This is the first thing to check, especially if none of your international texts get through, whatever the country. French carriers keep a tight rein on this traffic because it has historically been a target for fraud (SIM boxes, bulk sending to foreign premium-rate numbers). The result: on many entry-level plans and on almost all prepaid cards, sending outside France is restricted until it is explicitly enabled.
What to ask customer service, word for word: "could you check whether sending SMS to international numbers is allowed on my line, and enable it?". Avoid mentioning roaming: roaming is when you are abroad. Here you are in France writing to a foreign number: these are two different options, and confusing them sends the conversation round in circles.
In your online account, look for a section along the lines of "Options and services" → "Calls and SMS abroad". If you find nothing, the setting simply isn't exposed in self-care and you'll have to go through an adviser.
2. The number isn't in the right format
An international SMS only goes out if the number is written in international format: + followed by the country code, then the number without its leading zero.
- Replace the leading
00or0with+and the country code. - Drop the leading zero of the national number.
- Remove spaces, dots, dashes and brackets — some handsets tolerate them, others don't.
- Save the contact in international format (not the country's local format) so that sending also works from abroad.
| Country | Country code | Local number | To dial from France |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spain | +34 | 612 345 678 | +34612345678 |
| Mexico | +52 | 55 1234 5678 | +525512345678 |
| Morocco | +212 | 06 12 34 56 78 | +212612345678 |
| United Kingdom | +44 | 07700 900123 | +447700900123 |
| Switzerland | +41 | 078 123 45 67 | +41781234567 |
| United States / Canada | +1 | (415) 555-0132 | +14155550132 |
Two pitfalls come up again and again. Mexico: the old habit of adding a 1 after +52 for mobiles no longer applies since the renumbering, and adding it makes messages to a Telcel or AT&T México number fail. Italy: mobile numbers start with a 3 that must be kept (+39 3xx…), contrary to the drop-the-zero rule.
Simple rule: if in doubt, ask your contact to text you first, then reply directly in the thread. Their number arrives already correctly formatted.
3. The phone's message centre has been altered
The SMSC (Short Message Service Centre) is your carrier's server through which every text passes. Its number is normally stored on the SIM card. It may have been overwritten by a mishandled setting, by a third-party messaging app, or when retrieving settings on a phone bought abroad.
Characteristic symptom: nothing goes out at all, neither to France nor abroad, while you receive messages perfectly. On Android, the setting is often reachable via the code *#*#4636#*#* or in the advanced SMS settings of the messaging app; on iPhone it isn't accessible and is fixed by resetting the network settings.
Good practice: never enter an SMSC number found on a forum. Ask your carrier, which can also push it to the SIM remotely, or simply put the card into another phone to confirm the problem really comes from the handset. A small SIM tray ejector tool saves you from scratching the chassis with bent paperclips.
4. An anti-fraud block has been triggered
Carriers apply caps on volume and destinations. Sending twenty texts in a row to an unusual country is sometimes enough to freeze outgoing messages for a few hours, during an automated check. Arcep regularly points out, in its work on fighting communications fraud, that these filtering mechanisms are in the carriers' hands (arcep.fr).
If your international texts were going out yesterday and aren't today, and the number hasn't changed, this is the most likely explanation. A call to customer service lifts the block, provided you can explain your usage.
5. The recipient's carrier filters or delays messages
Finally, the problem may be at the other end. Some foreign carriers filter incoming traffic for regulatory or anti-spam reasons, particularly for messages containing links, short codes or an unidentified sender. Others deliver with a delay of several hours.
You can recognise this case by its selectivity: your messages get through to Spain (Movistar, Vodafone) but not to a particular network in West Africa or South-East Asia. There is little you or your French carrier can do about it: you need to switch to another channel.
How to test in five minutes without calling anyone
Work by elimination, in this order. Each step rules out one cause.
- Send an SMS to a French number. Does it go out? The phone and the message centre are fine. It doesn't? The problem is local (SMSC, SIM, app): no point looking at the international side.
- Send to a second country (a Swiss contact if you were aiming for Mexico). Failure everywhere → the line option is switched off. Failure to a single country → filtering or formatting.
- Retype the number by hand in
+country codeformat, without going through your address book, and without spaces. - Change phones: put your SIM in another device and try again. If it works, the handset was the problem.
- Change SIMs: put another card in your phone. If it works, the problem is with your line, so with the carrier option.
This sequence requires having a second device to hand. That's another reason why an old basic mobile phone kept at the back of a drawer, with a battery that still holds a charge, remains a very handy diagnostic tool — provided it is compatible with today's networks, something the gradual shutdown of 2G and 3G calls into question for the oldest models.
What if the carrier won't unblock sending?
There are immediate workarounds that don't depend on your line.
An online sending service. You can write a text from a browser and have it delivered to a mobile, without using your plan or relying on your line's international option. That's the purpose of our home page for sending a free text; destinations and conditions are detailed on the pricing page.
IP messaging. WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram and iMessage don't use the SMS network: they travel over data or Wi-Fi. If your contact uses them, the problem disappears — with one caveat, a connection must be available at both ends.
RCS, but not for improvised international messaging. RCS (the SMS successor in Google Messages and, since iOS 18, on iPhone) also works over data. Its rollout depends on agreements between carriers, though; if the recipient has no RCS coverage, the message falls back to SMS and runs into exactly the same block. The mechanism is explained in detail in our article on RCS versus SMS.
Wi-Fi calling. Calls and texts over Wi-Fi get around poor coverage, not a commercial restriction. If the international option is switched off, the SMS will fail over Wi-Fi too.
And what if I'm the one abroad?
The diagnosis changes. From abroad, three extra settings come into play: data roaming and voice/SMS roaming must be enabled in the network settings, and network selection must be left on automatic. A manually selected network that becomes unavailable blocks sending without warning.
A useful reminder about costs: in the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, the roam like at home principle means your texts are counted as if you were in France, and reception is free. The rules and caps are detailed by Arcep and by the European Commission on their roaming pages. Outside the EU, none of that applies: every SMS sent is billed individually depending on the zone, which is why it pays to check the price list before you leave. We covered this in our guide to SMS and data outside the European Union.
One nuance that often takes people by surprise: writing to a French number from abroad is not an international SMS from a billing standpoint, it's a roaming SMS. And conversely, writing from a non-EU country to the neighbouring country you're visiting tomorrow is indeed billed as roaming, not at the local rate.
For a long stay, the most economical combination is still often a local eSIM alongside your French line, provided the phone supports dual SIM. Frequent travellers also equip themselves with a fast-charging power bank, because a phone hunting for a foreign network uses considerably more power, and a universal travel adapter so they can charge without nasty surprises.
Error messages and what they really mean
- "Not delivered" / red exclamation mark: the message was not accepted by the network. In 9 cases out of 10, the option is switched off or the format is wrong.
- "Sent" but never read: the SMS left your carrier. The failure is downstream (recipient's carrier, phone switched off, full inbox on some networks). Be patient: the standard retention period of an SMSC ranges from a few hours to several days.
- Failure with emoji or accents: the message switched to UCS-2 encoding, which cuts the usable length to 70 characters and can cause problems on a few older gateways. Try again without emoji to test. The mechanism is explained in our article on the 160-character limit.
- No feedback at all: check the status bar. No network, a lingering airplane mode or a badly seated SIM, and nothing will go out.
One hardware detail not to overlook: a SIM card more than ten years old, oxidised or slightly warped, causes intermittent sending failures while reception keeps working. An antistatic microfibre cloth and a clean reinsertion solve more cases than you'd think. If the SIM reader itself is worn out, a free card replacement at the carrier is the answer.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my SMS to Movistar or Telcel never arrive?
First check the format: +34 for Spain, +52 for Mexico, with no leading zero and no 1 after +52. If the format is correct and other countries work, it's filtering on the recipient carrier's side: use an IP messaging app or an online sending service.
Does receiving an SMS from abroad cost me anything?
No. In France, receiving an SMS is free, whether the sender is French or foreign, and whether you are at home or roaming within the European Union. Only sending is billed.
Is the "international SMS" option chargeable?
Activation is generally free with French carriers; it's the usage that is billed, per message or included depending on the plan. Ask for the per-zone price list at the same time as activation.
How long does an international SMS take to arrive?
From a few seconds to a few minutes under normal conditions. Beyond an hour with no delivery, either the recipient is unreachable and the message is waiting in the message centre, or delivery was silently rejected.
My plan includes unlimited texts: is international included?
Rarely. "Unlimited SMS" almost always covers messages sent to mainland France, sometimes to the EU and the French overseas departments depending on the offer. Messages sent to a number outside that zone fall outside the plan. The exact terms appear in your offer's standardised information sheet, which the carrier is required to provide. Our FAQ covers the most common cases.
