The Setup Long-Term Expats Eventually Land On

If you've moved to a new country and you're past the first month or two, you've probably already realised your home-country mobile contract is a bad fit. Roaming surcharges, expensive inbound calls, slow data, and a number that doesn't quite work for local accounts that need an in-country verification code.

The pragmatic setup that experienced expats and long-term travellers settle on is two layers, not one:

  1. A local SIM in the country where you actually live — cheap data, local outbound calls at local rates, a local number for local services (food delivery, ride apps, opening a bank account, a gym membership).
  2. A virtual home-country number — a permanent inbound address for everyone back home. Banks, employers, family, doctors, the school, your accountant. They keep dialling the same number they always did. You receive those calls wherever you happen to be.

The two layers do completely different jobs and barely interact. You don't need to migrate anyone to a messaging app. You don't need to ask your bank to update your number every six months. You don't pay roaming on inbound, ever.

Layer 1: The Local SIM

This part is straightforward. Walk into any local mobile shop, show ID, walk out with a prepaid SIM. In most of Europe a 20 GB data + 200 local minutes plan is €10–€20/month. In Southeast Asia it's $5–$10. In the US it's $25–$40 for similar.

What the local SIM gives you:

  • A local phone number that local apps and services will accept for verification
  • Local outbound calls and SMS at local rates (usually trivial)
  • Mobile data that doesn't roam — actually fast, actually cheap
  • An emergency-services destination that works without internet

What the local SIM doesn't give you:

  • Any way for people in your home country to reach you cheaply (international rates from their side)
  • Continuity with all the accounts and services tied to your old number
  • Inbound 2FA codes from any home-country service that won't text international numbers

Layer 2: The Virtual Home-Country Number

This is where a service like Voxa fits. You buy a local number in your home country while you're sitting abroad. The number behaves identically to any other landline or mobile in that country — banks accept it, delivery companies accept it, family don't notice anything has changed. From their side, the cost of calling you is the same as before.

When someone dials it, you have three ways to receive:

  1. In the Voxa web app, on whatever device is in front of you — phone, laptop, tablet. No per-minute charge. Only the monthly rental for the number itself.
  2. Forwarded to your local SIM in the country where you live. Forwarding is priced at the standard outbound per-minute rate from Voxa to that destination — so forwarding a UK number's incoming call to a Spanish mobile is around €0.02–€0.05/min depending on Spanish destination type. The cost is yours, not the caller's.
  3. Forwarded to a landline anywhere, at the standard landline outbound rate to that country (e.g. UK landline €0.02/min, Germany landline €0.04/min, France landline €0.02/min).

If your local SIM has decent data and Wi-Fi calling capability for the Voxa app, option 1 is essentially free. You take calls in the browser, the audio quality is HD, and the caller experience is identical to a real phone call.

A Worked Example: A German Software Engineer in Lisbon

Setup:

  • Local Portuguese SIM with 20 GB data and 100 outbound minutes for €15/month
  • Voxa German number for €X/month rental (varies by number type)
  • All calls received in the Voxa web app on her phone over Wi-Fi or 5G

Typical month:

  • 6 inbound calls from German bank (10 min each = 60 min total) — €0 in the browser
  • 4 inbound calls from family on WhatsApp — €0 (already on WhatsApp)
  • 2 inbound calls from a German clinic and one from an old German employer — €0 in the browser
  • Outbound calls to local Portuguese businesses — covered by the Portuguese SIM's included minutes
  • Outbound calls back to Germany — through Voxa at €0.04/min landline / €0.07/min mobile, around €5/month

Total monthly phone spend: about €20–€25 plus the Voxa number rental, depending on country. Compare to the old setup where she was paying €70/month for the German contract plus €40/month in roaming when she travelled — and still missing calls.

What About Inbound SMS and 2FA?

This is the one piece worth being honest about. Voxa's primary inbound product is voice calls to the local number. If your bank only ever sends 2FA codes by SMS to your old German mobile, those won't automatically arrive in Voxa.

Most banks now offer alternatives:

  • App-based 2FA (e.g. their own mobile app, which works on your phone over internet)
  • Email-based codes
  • Authenticator apps (TOTP via Google Authenticator, 1Password, etc.)
  • Voice 2FA — many banks will read the code aloud over a phone call if you select that option. This works perfectly with a Voxa virtual number.

Migrating off SMS 2FA before you set up the rest is the small piece of homework that makes this setup bulletproof.

Migrating Your Home SIM: Three Options

Once Layer 2 is in place, you have a decision about the SIM card you originally had:

  1. Cancel it entirely. Save the contract cost. Forward any stragglers via conditional forwarding rules on the old number (most home carriers let you forward to any destination free of charge from a pay-as-you-go SIM, paid only when the forward happens).
  2. Downgrade to the cheapest pay-as-you-go SIM and keep the original number paired with conditional forwarding. €5/month or so. Acts as a fallback in case Voxa is temporarily unreachable.
  3. Port the original number to a virtual provider like Voxa. Most home-country numbers are portable to virtual carriers, though the process takes 2–4 weeks. After porting, the old SIM stops working and inbound goes directly to Voxa with no forwarding leg.

Option 2 is the most common. It keeps the original number alive as an insurance policy, and the monthly cost is small enough that it's worth the peace of mind during the first year abroad.

Why This Setup Wins

It's stable. The Voxa number is independent of any country you happen to live in, which means moving from Lisbon to Bangkok next year doesn't require updating anything. Banks still call the same number. Family still dials the same number. Your local SIM changes; the inbound stays.

It's cheap. The total monthly spend is the local SIM plus the virtual number rental — typically €15–€25/month total — versus a home-country mobile contract (€30–€80/month) plus roaming surcharges (highly variable).

It's quiet. After the initial setup, this stuff stops needing maintenance. No daily decisions about which SIM to use, no rationing of incoming calls, no surprise bills.

The two-layer setup is what experienced expats use because it solves the actual problem: being reachable on a home-country number while paying local prices for daily life. It takes about an hour to set up and runs forever after that.