Mobile phone registration in Mexico is the legal requirement that every active mobile telephone line in the country be linked to an identified holder. Under the Telecommunications and Broadcasting Law of 2025 and guidelines issued by the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (CRT) in December 2025, mobile operators may activate and maintain service only for lines associated with a subscriber who has presented official identification bearing a Unique Population Registry Code (CURP) for individuals or a Federal Taxpayer Registry number (RFC) for companies. The obligation applies to prepaid and postpaid lines, to both physical SIM cards and eSIMs, and to lines bought by foreign visitors, though not to travellers roaming on a foreign operator's service. Linking began on 9 January 2026.
The measure is the third Mexican attempt to end anonymous mobile telephony. A first registry, RENAUT, operated from 2009 until its repeal in 2011; roughly two-thirds of lines went unregistered, the database was leaked and offered for sale, and reported extortion rose during its operation. A second, PANAUT, required biometric data and was declared unconstitutional in its entirety by the Supreme Court of Mexico in April 2022, which held that it created a system of permanent and indiscriminate surveillance and failed a test of proportionality. The 2026 scheme was designed around that ruling: operators are forbidden to retain biometric data, photographs or copies of identity documents, and the government has said that subscriber information is held by the carriers rather than consolidated in a state database.
Registration proceeded more slowly than the government had planned. By the original deadline of 30 June 2026 fewer than half of Mexico's mobile lines had been linked, and the CRT replaced the deadline with a schedule staggered by the last digit of the telephone number, running from 15 August to 31 December 2026. The requirement has been challenged in more than ten thousand amparo suits, criticised by the digital rights organisation R3D, and opposed by the three main opposition parties in the Senate. President Claudia Sheinbaum has defended the measure as a preventive step against extortion and fraud.
Background
RENAUT, 2009–2012 The National Registry of Mobile Telephone Users (Registro Nacional de Usuarios de Telefonía Móvil, RENAUT) was created by a reform to the Federal Telecommunications Law approved on 9 February 2009, during the administration of Felipe Calderón. It was justified as a means of preventing and prosecuting kidnapping and extortion committed by telephone.
Subscribers registered by sending a text message containing their CURP, and the registration period ran from 10 April 2009 to 10 April 2010, after which unregistered lines were to be disconnected. Because the system verified nothing beyond the CURP itself, records could be created using another person's data: in April 2010 some 12,000 lines were found to have been registered in the name of President Calderón. About 27 million of roughly 83 million lines had been registered when the period closed.
The registry did not achieve its stated purpose. Reports of extortion rose by 26 per cent between December 2009 and January 2010 compared with the same period a year earlier. In June 2010 El Universal reported that the database was being offered for sale on the internet and on the black market, and copies were said to be circulating in the Tepito district of Mexico City. Congress abolished RENAUT on 29 April 2011, and the Secretariat of the Interior destroyed the database and its associated records on 15 June 2012.
PANAUT and the 2022 ruling A second registry, the National Registry of Mobile Telephony Users (Padrón Nacional de Usuarios de Telefonía Móvil, PANAUT), was established by a decree reforming the Federal Telecommunications and Broadcasting Law published on 16 April 2021, the Chamber of Deputies having approved it in December 2020. Administered by the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT), PANAUT required subscribers to supply identifying information including their biometric data as a condition of holding a mobile line.
The registry was challenged from several directions. The National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and Personal Data Protection (INAI) filed an action of unconstitutionality on 13 May 2021, and 48 opposition senators filed a second action, which the Court consolidated with the first as Acción de Inconstitucionalidad 82/2021 and its accumulated case 86/2021. The IFT separately brought a constitutional controversy on 26 May 2021, arguing that the decree encroached on its budgetary autonomy and regulatory powers; the Supreme Court granted the institute a suspension on 15 June 2021, which its First Chamber confirmed on 20 October 2021.
On 25 April 2022, the Court's plenary declared the decree invalid in its entirety, reaching the majority of eight votes required for a general declaration of invalidity. The judgment, drafted by Justice Norma Lucía Piña Hernández, held that the registry infringed the rights to privacy, intimacy and the protection of personal data in a manner that was neither reasonable nor necessary in a democratic society, and that it failed the third stage of a proportionality analysis because less restrictive alternatives existed. Justices noted that the decree set no limit on how long data could be retained and required no judicial authorisation for access, and the judgment described PANAUT as creating "a system of permanent and indiscriminate surveillance that allows the State to interfere with and directly monitor private life".
Legal framework
Telecommunications and Broadcasting Law The Telecommunications and Broadcasting Law was published on 16 July 2025, one of several statutes issued that day as part of a package on security, intelligence and telecommunications. It followed the organic simplification reform of December 2024, which abolished a number of autonomous constitutional bodies including the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) and required a new regulatory framework for the sector. The law created the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (CRT), a body of five members appointed by the executive and ratified by the Senate, which assumed the IFT's functions. Articles 103 and 164, fraction III, oblige concessionaires operating public telecommunications networks that provide mobile service to activate and maintain lines only for users who have presented official identification, in accordance with guidelines to be issued by the CRT.
R3D had objected to the registry provisions while the bill was before Congress, arguing that they were introduced alongside the National Investigation and Intelligence System Law, published the same day, which in the organisation's view permits security agencies to obtain records held by public and private bodies without a prior judicial order in every case. Rather than amend the registry provisions, the organisation urged Congress to pass comprehensive digital services legislation setting out duties of data protection, transparency, due process and accountability.
CRT guidelines The CRT approved the Guidelines for the Identification of Mobile Telephone Lines (Lineamientos para la Identificación de Líneas Telefónicas Móviles) by resolution P/CRT/EXT/08122025/144, published in the Diario Oficial on 9 December 2025. They limit what operators may record to the subscriber's name or corporate name, the CURP or RFC, the telephone number, the type of identity document presented, the result and source of the identity validation, and a unique reference number for the linking or unlinking with its date and time. Operators are prohibited from storing biometric data, photographs, copies of official identification or any other documents. An individual may hold a maximum of ten mobile lines; there is no limit for legal entities, which must instead demonstrate their tax status. Individuals who already held ten or more postpaid lines when the guidelines took effect were exempt from the cap.
The guidelines set the implementation timetable, requiring operators to begin public information campaigns immediately, to enable a management platform within 30 days and a consultation platform within 60 days, and to begin linking lines within 30 days. Lines that remain unlinked are to be disabled, retaining only the ability to call emergency and citizen assistance numbers—911, 074, 079, 088 and 089—and the operator's own customer service, and to receive Common Alerting Protocol messages such as seismic alerts.
Registration process Registration is free and may be completed online through an operator's portal or application, through the CRT's own portal, or in person at a customer service centre. Operators sent subscribers a text message containing a link to their registration page; Telcel customers could also begin the process by sending the word REGISTRO to 4848.
Individuals must supply their CURP and a valid photographic identity document, such as the INE voter credential or a passport. Companies register using their corporate name and RFC together with the identification of a legal representative, and may validate the process with an electronic signature. Lines held by minors are registered by a parent or guardian. Online registration involves photographing both sides of the identity document and completing a "proof of life" check through the telephone's camera, which compares the holder in real time with the photograph on the document. The CRT stated that the process requests neither fingerprints nor iris scans and that the validation does not entail the storage of biometric data by the operators. Separately, the consultation platform required by the guidelines allowed subscribers to see which lines were associated with their CURP or RFC and to begin unlinking any they did not recognise.
Implementation Linking began on 9 January 2026 with a deadline of 30 June. Uptake was slow. Norma Solano Rodríguez, the CRT's first commissioner president, reported 30.2 million lines linked by 19 April 2026, and said that registrations were running at between 320,000 and 352,000 a day against the 1.5 million a day needed to meet the deadline; progress varied by operator, at 19 per cent of Telcel's lines, 29 per cent of AT&T's, 16 per cent of Movistar's and 28 per cent of Bait's. The CRT reported 56,797,762 lines linked as of 5 June 2026. The commission had counted 144,585,131 active mobile lines in the third quarter of 2025, defining an active line as one registering voice traffic during the quarter; of these, Telcel held 57.90 per cent, AT&T 16.42 per cent, Movistar 14.05 per cent and Bait 7.04 per cent.
On 26 June 2026, with about 63 million lines linked (40.2 million prepaid and 22.8 million postpaid), the CRT abandoned the single deadline in favour of a schedule staggered by the last digit of the telephone number. Lines ending in 0 had until 15 August 2026, those ending in 1 until 31 August, and so on in fortnightly steps through to lines ending in 9 on 31 December 2026. Operators are to suspend unlinked lines within 72 hours of the applicable date, and subscribers have 90 days to complete registration and request reactivation before a number may be reassigned.
Registration reached about 68 million lines by 26 July 2026 and 71,101,000, some 49 per cent of the total, by 15 August, when the first suspensions took effect. The CRT declined to grant a further extension. The consultancy The Competitive Intelligence Unit estimated that between 4 million and 8.7 million lines would be suspended in the first tranche.