OpenAI says ChatGPT doesn't require a phone number

The sentence that ends most visits here

• OpenAI Help Center, on when verification applies

  “Phone verification is no longer required for new OpenAI account creation or ChatGPT usage.”

  https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8983040-what-does-phone-verification-look-like

• OpenAI Help Center, on where it does apply

  “Phone verification is now mandated on platform.openai.com for generating your initial API key, though not for any subsequent API key generation after that.”

  https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8983040-what-does-phone-verification-look-like

If you are signing up to ChatGPT, or already use it and were asked for something else, the answer is that a phone number is not the requirement it was. Buy nothing. If you are here because you are moving from the app to the API — building something, wiring an agent up to a model — the page you want is OpenAI phone verification, which is about the organisation's account rather than the consumer one.

If you are asked anyway: what OpenAI refuses

• OpenAI Help Center, on premium, landline and VoIP numbers

  “We do not support use of landlines, VoIP, Google Voice, or premium numbers at this time.”

  https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8983024-can-i-use-a-premium-number-landline-google-voice-or-other-voip-phone-number

The channel list is just as narrow: “we only support completing phone verification via mobile phone numbers over an SMS text message. In selected regions, we also support WhatsApp verification”, and “Verification codes can only be sent by SMS or, where available, WhatsApp; they cannot be sent by email or phone call” (OpenAI, OpenAI). There is no voice fallback. This is one of the few places in this section where a company names the line types it rejects, which makes what makes a number non-VoIP the relevant mechanism rather than a curiosity.

The three-use cap, and why a recycled number fails

• OpenAI Help Center, on reusing a number

  “A phone number can only ever be used for phone verification up to 3 times.”

  https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8983031-how-many-times-can-i-use-the-same-phone-number-to-complete-the-phone-verification-associated-with-an-openai-accounts-first-api-key-generation

• OpenAI Help Center, on numbers with a past

  “Recycled or reused phone numbers can lead to this error. Currently, there is no workaround.”

  https://help.openai.com/en/articles/10388702-phone-only-signups

That second quote is the reason a cheap disposable number fails here and a line somebody actually holds does not: the disposable one has a history you cannot see. OpenAI adds that a number which has been used at all is spent — “Even if you only used phone verification once, the phone number is locked from creating any additional accounts in the future” (OpenAI). Why a number nobody else has used matters is the longer version of that argument.

And the number can never be changed

• OpenAI Help Center, on changing the number

  “OpenAI does not offer the option to change or update the phone number associated with your account. This is true for ChatGPT and the OpenAI API.”

  https://help.openai.com/en/articles/9135134-how-to-change-the-phone-number-associated-with-your-account

Every other service in this section has a change-number flow. OpenAI does not, and says so about ChatGPT explicitly. Whatever number is on the account is on it permanently, which means the usual advice — move the number before the old one lapses — is unavailable here. Choose once.

One account, one person

OpenAI's Terms of Use are unambiguous: “You may not share your account credentials or make your account available to anyone else and are responsible for all activities that occur under your account” (OpenAI). A one-time code arriving in a team inbox is not a shared credential; a shared password is. Keep the two apart, and put colleagues in an organisation rather than in your login.

Where a Cleat line fits

Not on a consumer ChatGPT account, which does not ask. It fits one step further on: a company or a solo builder generating a first API key from outside the US, or an automated workflow that has to read a code without a person holding a handset. A Cleat line is a real US mobile number, not VoIP, held by one identity-verified person, at $24.99 a month, with an API and an MCP server for the agent case — Cleat for AI agents covers the tool that waits for the next code.

When Cleat is the wrong answer here

• Signing up to ChatGPT. OpenAI says phone verification is not required for that. There is nothing to buy.
• A second or third account. The cap is three verifications for the life of a number, and OpenAI says a used number is locked from creating additional accounts.
• Sharing one login with a team. OpenAI's terms forbid making the account available to anyone else. Use an organisation.
• Changing a number you already used. There is no such feature, for ChatGPT or the API.

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