Do I need a landline for my business?

Do you legally or practically need a landline?

There is no law in the UK that says a business must have a landline. You can register a company at Companies House, open a business bank account, register for VAT and trade quite happily with a mobile number or a virtual number. Nothing about running a legitimate business depends on having a copper line plugged into a wall.

Practically, the picture is the same. Forms, directories and customers sometimes ask for a phone number, but any working business number satisfies that. A virtual landline, which gives you a real 01, 02, 03 or 0800 number with no physical line, is accepted everywhere a traditional number would be. So the honest answer to "do I need a landline" is no, you need a business phone number, and a landline is just one of several ways to get one, and increasingly the least sensible.

The reason the question still comes up is habit. For decades, getting a business number meant ordering a phone line. That link is now broken. You can have the number without the line, which removes the line rental, the engineer visit and the wait. For a new business watching its costs, that is a clear win.

Why do businesses still want a "proper" number?

Wanting a proper business number is completely reasonable, even if you do not need an old-style landline to get one. There are real benefits to having a dedicated business number rather than just handing out your personal mobile, and they are worth keeping. The trick is to recognise that these are reasons to get a business number, not reasons to get a copper line.

• Trust and professionalism. A settled-looking number, especially a local 01 or 02, reassures customers that you are an established business they can rely on and reach again.
• A separate line. A business number keeps work calls out of your personal life, so you are not fielding customer calls during a family dinner from the same number friends use.
• Privacy. Your personal mobile number stays off your website, van and quotes. Once a personal number is online, it tends to stay there forever.
• Call handling. A proper business number can route calls by time of day, send voicemails to your email, offer a menu and let you add staff. A bare mobile number cannot do any of that.

Every one of those benefits is available from a virtual landline, on the phone you already own, without a fixed line. So you get the professionalism people associate with a "proper" number, plus features a traditional landline never had, for less money.

What to use instead of a landline

The modern replacement for a business landline is a virtual landline, sometimes called a business number on your mobile. It is a genuine UK phone number that rings on an app on your existing smartphone, in a web browser, or on a desk phone if you want one. There is no line to rent, no hardware to buy and nothing for an engineer to install.

In day to day use, it feels simple. You choose a number, install an app, and business calls arrive in that app while your personal number stays separate. Customers dial your business number and it rings wherever you are, whether you are on a job, at a desk or working from home. When you call out through the app, your business number shows on the customer's screen, not your private one.

It also grows with you. You can start with a single local number, then add voicemail to email, business hours so it does not ring at midnight, a call menu, and extra people as you take on staff. That flexibility is exactly what a new business needs and exactly what a fixed landline cannot provide. The same internet calling technology that powers a virtual landline is what larger companies use for their whole phone systems, so you are starting on the right foundation.

The 2027 switch-off makes new landlines a dead end

There is a hard deadline that settles the argument. The UK's traditional phone network, the analogue PSTN along with ISDN, is being switched off on 31 January 2027. After that date, phone services no longer run over the old copper lines. Everything moves to internet-based calling. This is an industry-wide change led by Openreach and the major providers, not a one-off, and it affects every business still on a fixed line.

For a new business, this makes ordering a traditional landline a false economy. You would be paying to install something that is being retired within a couple of years, and you would have to switch to an internet-based service before 2027 regardless. Starting on a virtual landline now means you skip that detour entirely. You are already on the network that is staying, with no migration to plan and no deadline hanging over you.

If you have an existing business number on an old line, you do not lose it in the switch-off. Number porting lets you move it onto a virtual landline and keep it, usually free of charge, with no gap in service. So the switch-off is not a threat to your number, just the end of the copper line behind it.

"But customers trust an 01 number" - you can get a local number virtually

This is the worry that holds people back, and it is easily solved. Yes, many customers feel more comfortable calling a local-looking 01 or 02 number than a mobile, because it suggests a settled, local business. But you do not need a physical landline to get one. A virtual landline can give you a genuine local number for your area, or any UK area, that looks identical to a traditional business line and rings straight to your mobile.

Here is how the old landline and a virtual landline compare for a new business.

Feature	Traditional landline	Virtual landline
Local 01 or 02 number	Yes	Yes, plus 03 and 0800 options
Physical line needed	Yes, with line rental	No line, no line rental
Engineer or install	Usually required	None, live in minutes
Rings on your mobile	No, tied to one location	Yes, on the phone you own
Voicemail to email, call menu, business hours	Rarely, often extra	Built in
Keeps personal number private	Not relevant	Yes
Affected by 2027 switch-off	Yes, being retired	No, already internet-based
Typical monthly cost	Line rental plus call charges	Lower, from a few pounds per user

So you can have the trusted local number customers like, without the line, the cost or the looming switch-off. For a new business, a virtual landline gives you everything people associate with a proper landline and a good deal more.