Non-US founders of US companies search for "virtual US phone number" and find a mix of confident yes-this-works and equally confident no-this-doesn't-work. Both are oversimplifications. The truth is more useful: a virtual US phone number works perfectly for some categories of use, can be carrier-flagged for others, and is the wrong tool for a small handful of flows.
This article is the honest map. Use it before you sign up for any virtual phone service, including ours.
The Two Categories That Matter
Almost every use of a US phone number falls into one of two categories. Knowing which one your use case is in tells you immediately whether a virtual number will work.
Category 1: Phone-on-File
The number sits on a form, a directory listing, or a contract. Nobody ever sends an SMS to it as part of an automated verification flow. Nobody dials it expecting a live business to answer.
Examples: a W-9 contractor form, a contract's signature block, your business website's footer, a directory listing, your business email signature, your Stripe Atlas dashboard's "Company Phone" field.
Virtual numbers work fine here, every time. The number's job is to exist, to look like a real US number, and to be reachable in principle. The IRS will not call your phone-on-file unannounced. Your invoice recipient is not running a VoIP-detection check on the number in your contract footer.
Category 2: Real-Time Phone Verification
Something automated sends an SMS or makes a call to the number, expecting it to reach a specific real person right now. The third party may be running a VoIP-classification check before sending.
Examples: opening a bank account with SMS verification, signing up for a rideshare driver account, completing an identity-verification flow at a KYC platform, receiving a security code from your bank's app.
Virtual numbers can be flagged here, depending on the carrier classification of the specific number and the policy of the third party. This is true of every virtual provider — Quo (OpenPhone), Grasshopper, Google Voice, IncNumber, all of them. The flag isn't "this brand is bad"; it's "this number is classified as VoIP in the third party's lookup database (Telesign / Twilio Lookup / NetNumber)."
If you understand which category your use case is in, you'll never be surprised.
Where a Virtual US Number Always Works
These uses are pure Category 1. A virtual US number does what you need, every time.
Government and Tax Forms
- IRS Form W-9 (taxpayer identification for US contractors) — phone field is for the IRS to reach you, not for automated verification.
- IRS Form SS-4 (EIN application) — the IRS does not text-verify your phone number on the form.
- IRS Form 1120 / 1120-F / 1120-S (annual corporate tax return) — phone field is informational.
- IRS Form W-8BEN-E (non-US entity tax status) — phone field is informational.
- State business registration filings — the Secretary of State's office in Delaware, Wyoming, etc. accepts any reachable phone.
- Registered agent records — the phone you list with your registered agent is for them to contact you. No automation.
US Company Service Dashboards
- Stripe Atlas — the company-info form requesting a "company phone" is for your business profile. No SMS verification.
- doola — same. doola will literally tell you to "get a US phone number" because they expect non-US founders to acquire one. They do not run VoIP checks on the number you give them.
- Firstbase — same.
- Mercury, Wise, Brex, Relay — if they ask for a company phone as part of company information (not as 2FA), the company-info field is informational. The verification SMS is a separate flow (see Category 2 below). Don't confuse the two.
Your Own Public Surfaces
- Your business website's contact page.
- Your business email signature.
- Your LinkedIn company page.
- Vendor-onboarding forms where you're providing the phone for reference.
- B2B directories (Crunchbase, G2, Capterra company profiles).
Most B2B SaaS Signups
When you sign up for a B2B tool — Slack, Notion, Linear, Figma, HubSpot, Zendesk — and they ask for a phone number during company onboarding, that field is almost always informational. They want to know they can reach a real person at the company; they don't run a VoIP-detection check on it.
Where It Usually Works
These are uses that work most of the time. They occasionally hit a Category-2-style automated check, but the failure is uncommon and the workaround is the same: use a real mobile SIM for that specific flow.
Receiving SMS from Most US Services
When a US-facing service sends an SMS to your number (not for security purposes, but for things like delivery notifications, appointment reminders, marketing texts), virtual numbers receive these reliably. The sender is using standard 10DLC or short-code messaging, and the message arrives.
Customer Support Callback Fields
Many US support flows ask "what's the best number to reach you?" — these are queued for a human callback, not for automated verification. Virtual numbers work here.
Two-Factor SMS for Most Web Services
A large majority of B2B and consumer web services that send a 2FA SMS will deliver it to a virtual number. Slack, Zoom, GitHub, GitLab, AWS, Google Workspace (as a backup factor), Microsoft 365, Notion, Dropbox — all of these deliver 2FA SMS to virtual numbers without complaint.
The minority that don't are detailed below.
Where Carrier Classification Matters (Variable)
These are the flows where a virtual number might work and might not, depending on which carrier-classification database the third party uses and how that database has labeled the specific number you're using.
Some Bank Account Opening Flows
US banks targeting non-residents (Mercury, Relay, Brex) generally need to verify a phone number during account opening. Whether they accept a given virtual number depends on:
- The carrier classification of that specific number (each underlying carrier — Telnyx, Twilio, Bandwidth, Inteliquent — gets classified differently by different lookup databases).
- The bank's current policy on VoIP-classified numbers (which changes over time).
- Sometimes the country your account is associated with, your IP location, and other risk signals.
We've seen founders successfully open Mercury accounts with virtual numbers from major providers; we've also seen others rejected on essentially the same setup. There is no virtual provider — not Quo, not Grasshopper, not IncNumber, none of them — that publicly guarantees passing any specific bank's verification. Anyone claiming otherwise is overselling.
Practical guidance: try the virtual number you have for the bank's verification. If it works, great. If it doesn't, get a US prepaid SIM ($10-30, services like US Mobile or Mint Mobile) for the specific verification, and use the virtual number going forward as your phone-on-file.
Identity-Verification Platforms (Plaid, Persona, Stripe Identity)
Same dynamic. These platforms run VoIP-classification checks before sending verification SMS. Some virtual numbers pass; some don't. You can't predict in advance for a specific number-and-platform pair.
Apple Developer / Google Play Developer Account SMS
Both Apple and Google's developer-account flows have been known to reject virtual numbers at the verification step, depending on the carrier classification. Again, no virtual provider passes this universally.
US Rideshare / Delivery Driver Signups
Uber Driver, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart all run strict phone-verification at driver signup and consistently reject virtual numbers. This is the most reliably blocked category.
Where It Doesn't Work — Don't Try
A small number of categories will not accept a virtual number under any common configuration. Save yourself the time.
- US mobile-carrier short-code 2FA for some banking apps — your existing US-mobile-carrier-required banking app will not let you switch your registered phone to a virtual number. This is a known limitation of every virtual provider.
- Voter registration / government ID verification — non-US founders shouldn't be doing this anyway, but for completeness: no.
- Anything that requires a recurring SIM-on-the-device signal (driver apps, gig-economy apps that ping the SIM).
How to Think About This
Three rules cover almost every case:
- If the number's job is to exist on paper, a virtual number works. (Phone-on-file, every form, every directory, every signup that asks for a phone "for our records".)
- If the number's job is to receive a one-time SMS from a routine consumer or B2B web service, a virtual number works almost always. (2FA, password reset, signup confirmation, delivery notification.)
- If the number's job is to receive an SMS from a high-risk-screened flow — banks opening accounts, identity-verification platforms, gig-economy driver signup — your virtual number may be flagged at the carrier-classification layer. Use a US prepaid mobile SIM ($10-30) for that specific moment, and use the virtual number for everything else.
What This Means for IncNumber
IncNumber is built for Category 1 — phone-on-file for a US LLC or C-Corp — and the routine Category 2 flows (SMS forwarded to email) that work reliably for virtual providers. We do not claim, and have never claimed, that IncNumber numbers always pass bank-opening verification or identity-check platforms. No virtual provider can honestly claim that.
What IncNumber does guarantee:
- A real, newly provisioned US local DID — not a port-in-only number, not a Google Voice number, not a reseller chain.
- SMS forwarded to your email in real time, so every inbound message reaches you.
- $7/month, the realistic floor for newly provisioned US local numbers.
For the bank-opening or identity-verification moments — the small handful of times you really do need a number that will pass strict VoIP screening — get a US prepaid SIM for that flow. Use IncNumber for the other 99% of the time the company's phone needs to exist.
A US number on file for your US LLC
IncNumber is built for the phone-on-file use case. $7/month, SMS forwarded to email, no app, no English-language calls to pick up.
Get your US number →Bottom Line
A US virtual phone number works perfectly for the categories most non-US founders actually need — IRS forms, Stripe Atlas, doola, Firstbase, business directories, professional listings, customer support callback fields, the majority of B2B SaaS 2FA. It's variable to unreliable for a small set of high-screening flows — some bank account openings, some identity-verification platforms, developer-account SMS verification at major app stores. It does not work for rideshare driver signup and similar SIM-bound flows.
Most "does a virtual number work for X?" questions answer themselves once you place X in Category 1 or Category 2. If the answer is still ambiguous, the honest expectation is: it'll probably work, and if it doesn't, a $10 prepaid SIM solves it for that one moment.
That's the real map. Pick the virtual provider that fits the rest of your use case — and don't expect any of them, ours included, to be magic.