90 Days to Comply: Oman's New Number Portability Rules

If you have ever tried to switch your mobile provider in Oman while keeping the same number, you know it has not always been quick. On 30 August 2026, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) issued a new Number Portability Regulatory Framework that replaces rules dating back to 2008, formally locking in an automated, time-bound process for moving between operators, according to Oman Observer and Times of Oman.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• TRA has issued a new Number Portability Regulatory Framework, replacing Decision 145/2008, effective the day after publication in the Official Gazette, per Oman Observer.
• The framework formalizes rules for Oman's new Central Number Portability System, which automates transfers between mobile and fixed-line providers within minutes rather than days.
• Every successful transfer now carries a combined RO 3 fee: RO 1.5 to the TRA and RO 1.5 to the provider the customer is leaving.
• Receiving providers must verify the customer's identity, obtain explicit consent, and complete the switch within a fixed timeframe set by the TRA.
• Licensees must connect their systems to the TRA's central portability platform within 90 days of launching their service.
• Losing providers are barred from making retention offers or contacting customers to influence their decision once a transfer request is submitted.

📡 What Actually Changed

The new framework does three things at once: it standardizes the paperwork, automates the back-end transfer, and puts a clock on how long a provider can take to complete it. According to Oman Observer, the rules are designed to let end-users "select the telecommunications service provider that best aligns with their requirements in terms of pricing, service quality, and network coverage," while keeping their existing number, whether that is a mobile line or a fixed-line connection.

Applications now have to go through the provider a customer wants to move to, not the one they are leaving. That receiving provider is responsible for verifying identity, securing consent, and finishing the transfer inside the prescribed window, as Oman Observer reported.

🕰️ Why the Old Rules Needed an Overhaul

Oman first introduced number portability back in 2006, and the TRA issued its original governing rules in 2008. Almost two decades and several new licensees later, the market had outgrown that framework. As Times of Oman reported, the TRA said the expansion of the sector had exposed "several practices that had adversely affected the efficiency of number portability operations, including delays in processing requests."

The regulator's fix started more than a year before this week's framework. In August 2025, the TRA temporarily suspended mobile number portability across all providers, effective 18 August, specifically to migrate customers onto a new Central Number Portability System. By October 2025, that system was in pilot testing, with the TRA describing an "integrated central system that allows beneficiaries to switch between service providers easily while keeping the same number, through automated and simplified procedures within minutes." This week's framework is effectively the legal backbone for that system now that it has moved from pilot to full regulatory force.

⚙️ The New Rules, in Plain Terms

The framework also addresses what happens when a line has been suspended for non-payment, and it restricts how customer data collected during the portability process can be used, stating that information gathered through the system may only serve portability purposes and cannot be shared without TRA approval, per Oman Observer's reporting on the decision.

📶 The Bigger Telecom Picture

This rule change lands in a market that has been quietly growing its digital infrastructure all year. Oman's fixed and mobile subscriber base has kept climbing alongside fibre rollout, a trend covered in AI in Oman's look at the Sultanate's latest telecom numbers, where broadband bandwidth capacity jumped 32 percent. More bandwidth and more providers competing for the same customers is exactly the environment where a slow, manual portability process becomes a bottleneck, and where an automated one becomes a genuine competitive lever.

The framework arrives less than two weeks after the TRA's other August moves to tighten oversight of the sector, including new rules curbing spam calls and locking down telecom subscriber data, part of a broader pattern of the regulator modernizing how it governs an increasingly digital telecom market.

🇴🇲 Why This Matters for Oman

For ordinary subscribers, this is one of the more directly useful pieces of digital government reform this year: a faster, cheaper, more predictable way to switch providers without losing a number that might be tied to years of contacts, bank verification codes, or business registrations. For the telecom sector, a working, time-bound portability system is a basic precondition for real price and service competition among Oman's licensed operators.

It also fits the pattern the TRA has followed elsewhere this year: identify a manual, complaint-prone government-adjacent process, replace it with an automated system, then formalize the legal framework once the technology has proven itself in a pilot. That is a template Oman will likely keep reusing as it works toward its Vision 2040 digital economy targets.