I combined my Lifeline + ACP benefits so that they'd provide unlimited data; they ended up sending me a Nokia G300 5G (known as "the world's cheapest 5G smartphone").

Their upgrade website only sells Android phones, so I've decided to find one elsewhere.

Am I able to just buy a TracFone branded iPhone and swap the SIM card out, since TF and SafeLink are both owned by Verizon and ran on its network? How exactly do I go about choosing the iPhone and keeping my same SafeLink phone number and account active?

Thanks, all.

WARNING, LONG POST.

OK, short answer YES it works. BUT, it’s a process.

Called many times in English and got sent around left and right and even got hung up on many times, that was pretty much useless. Then decided to call SafeLink in Spanish, and I was actually getting somewhere. Rep was actually very helpful (if you can’t speak Spanish, sorry my friends 😅) Explained that I wanted to switch from physical sim to Esim because I got the iPhone 14. She ended up, from what I understood, resetting my SafeLink lifeline account and placed it under TracFone Wireless proper. She asked for my esim IMEI number, however the switch over to esim was not working at that moment she was attempting. So the only solution she was able to come up with was me switching my line over to straight talk wireless (which is also another company under TracFone) and initiate the switch to esim with them given that they actually have an established process to switch over. She told me I was going to keep my same benefit and still not pay, turns out it wasn’t true by the time I got transferred over to straight talk (would’ve had to pay $5 a month).

At that point I was going to give up because I wanted to maintain my same free benefit and not pay. Hung up and called it a night. Something told me to try the esim setup process again on the iPhone and it registered my line somehow!!

IN SUMMARY: -CALL SAFELINK AND TELL THEM YOU WANNA SWITCH TO ESIM. -HAVE THEM RESET YOUR LINE UNDER TRACFONE WIRELESS (AND MAKE SURE YOUR SERVICE WILL NOT BE INTERRUPTED) -GIVE THEM YOUR ESIM IMEI NUMBER. WAIT A WHILE AND TRY THE ESIM SETUP PROCESS AGAIN ON YOUR IPHONE