Switching from one mobile operator to another with your number portability (MNP) looks simple and modern in advertising brochures: you apply online or in a store, get a new SIM card, and painlessly enjoy better connectivity or a more favorable tariff.
Switching from one mobile operator to another with your number portability (MNP) looks simple and modern in advertising brochures: you apply online or in a store, get a new SIM card, and painlessly enjoy better connectivity or a more favorable tariff.
However, behind the scenes of this “digital freedom,” a real war is raging, where a fierce and sometimes legally “gray” struggle is being waged for each subscriber. The main battlefield is technical denial protocols, status manipulation, and regulatory indifference.
The dev.ua editorial team took a detailed look at how operators manipulate technical systems, why the NKEK issues "symbolic" fines, and how real people become hostages of mobile wars.
According to official data from the National Commission for the State Registration of Telephone Numbers (NKEK), provided in response to a request from dev.ua, 707,964 technical requests for number portability were submitted in Ukraine in the first half of 2026. Of these, only 334,341 portings were successfully completed, while 273,288 requests were rejected by basic operators for one reason or another.
The main beneficiary of MNP today remains lifecell. In the first six months of 2026, recipient operators submitted 505,520 requests to switch to lifecell. As a result, 215,725 users successfully switched to its network. At the same time, lifecell itself, as a donor operator, lost only 61,303 subscribers (out of 102,086 requests submitted to leave its network). Thus, the total inflow of users to lifecell exceeded the outflow by more than three times (3.5 times).
For comparison, the “big two” operators have a radically different dynamics. In the first half of 2026, 61,653 subscribers successfully switched to Kyivstar from other networks (out of 95,927 submitted requests), but the operator itself lost more than twice as many — 142,539 users (out of 249,921 requests to leave). 56,531 users managed to switch to the Vodafone Ukraine network (out of 105,565 submitted requests), while 129,801 subscribers were able to leave the network (out of 355,061 requests to leave).
For comparison, a year earlier — for the entire year 2025 — the total number of requests submitted was 826,709, of which 495,597 numbers were successfully ported, and 203,304 requests were rejected. Then lifecell attracted 307,855 numbers while losing 84,449, Kyivstar attracted 92,226 while losing 250,259, and Vodafone attracted 95,147 while losing 158,856 numbers.
To stop this mass exodus to lifecell, competitors are forcing subscribers to go through a real obstacle course.
Behind the dry numbers are real everyday and even life-threatening problems.
This spring, a resident of the front-line city of Kramatorsk found himself in a critical situation: Vodafone coverage in his area had completely disappeared, only the Lifecell network was working. The man was unable to call his family or the rescue service. The only way out was to urgently switch to Lifecell via MNP.
The subscriber submits the first application - receives a refusal: "The number does not belong to you." Checks the documents, submits a second one - "The number has been stolen." Submits a third time - again refusal.
At the same time, the donor operator calls him and offers discounts that he doesn't need.
Case 2. Pavlohrad: 10 attempts and zero result
Vodafone subscriber Igor from Pavlohrad has been trying to change operator for almost a month:
"I tried 10 times. They send a message something like: 'the number does not belong to you.' I went to the service center, went through verification through 'Diya' - it didn't help. They never explained to me why."
Igor has been using the number for over 20 years, all banking services are tied to it, which makes him a hostage to the situation.
After applying for MNP, Tetyana from Chernivtsi had a difficult conversation with a Vodafone manager. She explained that the tariff was too high and the quality of roaming did not suit her. The manager offered to halve the price, but Tetyana refused, doubting the long-term viability of the offer.
The next day, Tatyana received an official rejection with the reason: “the number was stolen.” The frustrated woman decided to simply buy a new SIM card, even though changing the linked financial number would cause her a lot of problems with the banks.
Officially, the donor carrier has only six clear reasons for refusing a porting (e.g., the number is inactive, is actually stolen, or is registered to someone else). If the subscriber changes their mind, they must personally cancel the application through the new carrier.
However, the operators came up with a "shortcut":
Manipulations with Code 406 (Request contains numbers of different individuals): Technically, this code is intended for corporate clients (when one application contains 10 numbers and at least one does not belong to the company). However, operators have begun to massively reject individual applications from ordinary individuals using it.
NKEK statistics confirm this anomalous surge: if Vodafone issued 26,254 refusals under code 406 for the whole of 2025, then in the first half of 2026 alone this figure soared to 102,417 refusals (out of the company's total 175,883 refusals). Lifecell had 9,634 refusals under code 406 in 2025, and only 3,768 in the first half of 2026. Kyivstar did not use this code at all.
The outbreak of “Code 408” (Number stolen): When code 406 came under scrutiny, the situation changed. In June 2026, Vodafone’s 406 rejection rate fell from 91% to 41%, while the 408 (“number stolen”) rejection rate soared from 1.6% in May to almost 50% in June. According to NKEK, while Vodafone used code 408 only 11 times in all of 2025, it did so 5,275 times in the first half of 2026.
Lifecell check: Specialists surveyed 102 subscribers who were denied with code 408. 100% of those surveyed confirmed that no one had stolen their number.
What's up with Kyivstar: At Kyivstar, the number of refusals with the "number stolen" mark (code 408) increased every month: from 352 in November 2025 to 3,564 in March 2026. In total, according to NKEK, in 2025 Kyivstar issued 10,677 refusals with code 408, and in the first half of 2026 - 12,136 refusals (out of 71,887 total refusals of the operator).
"The proportion of applications rejected with the reason "number stolen" is insignificant compared to the total number of applications for number porting. Therefore, we currently do not consider this as a systemic problem that requires separate intervention by the regulator," Kyivstar commented.
In the company's practice, the reason for refusal "number stolen" is used in cases where the subscriber receives information about possible unauthorized actions with the number. "This allows you to prevent potential fraudulent actions and ensure the protection of the subscriber's number," the company says.
The company says: there is no reason to believe that using this reason for refusal is a mechanism to artificially delay the MNP process.
"The verification of the application by the donor operator is carried out within the time limits specified by the regulations and lasts up to two hours. If the application is rejected with the reason "number stolen", this does not mean blocking the possibility of number porting. If the grounds for such a refusal are absent or eliminated, the subscriber can re-submit an application for number porting in accordance with the established procedure," Kiistar emphasizes.
The main reason for refusals at Kyivstar remains Code 417 ("Non-anonymous user"): 61,555 cases in 2025 and 49,449 cases in the first half of 2026 (Vodafone had 34,506 and 51,527 refusals under code 417, respectively).
According to official data from the National Electricity Commission, the number of complaints from citizens about MNP denials is rapidly growing: if for the entire year of 2025, the regulator received 44 applications, then for the first half of 2026 alone, there were already 104 applications.
Regarding inspections, the NCEC reported that no state supervision measures were carried out in response to lifecell's requests in 2026. However, on July 8, 2026, the regulator adopted decisions No. 331 and No. 332, by which it applied administrative and economic sanctions (fines) simultaneously to PrJSC "VF Ukraine" (Vodafone) and LLC "lifecell" - for "violation of technological processes to ensure interaction with the centralized database of ported numbers."
lifecell regarding the actions of the NKEK : Lifecell notes that the regulator punished them for a formality (due to technical settings, they gave the code 406 instead of 401 in cases where the number really did not belong to the subscriber), while the NKEK did not actually investigate the fact that the numbers actually belonged to people and were held by force.
"These fines are just tears for the operator. The appropriate response of the NKEC should be an inspection with a subsequent order to eliminate violations and restore the subscriber's rights. But even this does not solve the problem, because its cause is much deeper: the errors noted by the donor operator are in no way confirmed by either documents or system logs. It is this mechanism that needs changes, and this issue is currently exclusively in the hands of the regulator," shares the interlocutor at lifecell.
The editorial team of dev.ua contacted the press service of Vodafone Ukraine for comment. The company assures that the service is working stably:
"Everyone makes mistakes. But they do not affect the quality and availability of the service. The performance of the number porting service in the Vodafone network is at 99.9%. This indicates that the service is working successfully. The company complies with the requirements of current legislation, which ensures a comfortable and fast number porting process."
Advice from NKEK: If you believe that your number porting was denied without reason or the process is being delayed, the regulator advises you to first contact your operator to find out the reasons. If the issue cannot be resolved, submit an official application to NKEK.
The dev.ua editorial team continues to monitor the progress of the "mobile wars." The MNP service was supposed to become a tool of digital freedom for Ukrainians, not a trap of technical codes.
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