Hi, so here's the situation : I need to access government services in a different country to the one I live in permanently, and therefore I need a number in said country with the ability to receive SMS for login and payment confirmations. How should I go about it ?
I guess the easiest thing to do would be to wait for the next time I go there and buy a cheap SIM card there. But the problem is I'm only going to that country in a year from now, so I'd like to speed up things.
I thought about getting an e-SIM with the lowest amount possible of data, but it still comes out pretty expensive for just receiving confirmation messages.
Anyone have a better idea on how to do this ? How do double citizens go about this usually ?
Edit : didn't think it would matter much, but the country I need a verification number in are Brazil and Colombia, while I am in the EU
Since this would be the phone number that you'd rely upon to have continued access to those government services, I wouldn't skimp on the expense: consider the monthly charge for a domestic phone plan as a cost of citizenship or residency.
Supposing you find and set up an eSIM with a domestic carrier in that country, then one which supports WiFi calling would allow you to receive SMS/MMS from anywhere, provided that your phone also supports WiFi connectivity.
As an aside, WiFi connectivity was greatly useful when I was traveling in Japan, since I'd be back at the hotel with WiFi in the evening, which conveniently overlapped with USA West Coast time, so calls were perfectly natural.