Starting Friday, November 1, no mobile subscriber in Bangladesh will be allowed to keep more than 10 active SIM cards under a single National Identity Card (NID). The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has announced that mobile operators have begun the process of deactivating excess SIMs from today.
Previously, a subscriber could use up to 15 SIMs. Under the new directive, a user can now keep a maximum of 10 SIMs across all mobile operators combined.
BTRC Chairman Major General (Retd.) Md. Emdad Ul Bari stated, “From Saturday, operators will begin deactivating excess SIMs. By December, we will ensure that no NID has more than 10 active SIMs.”
According to BTRC, the move aims to restore discipline in SIM management and prevent various forms of fraud and misuse. Customers can check the number of SIMs registered under their NID either online or by dialing *16002#.
The deactivation process will follow a random selection policy, meaning that if a person has more than 10 registered SIMs, the additional ones will be randomly chosen and deactivated through an automated computer algorithm, leaving no room for human intervention or bias.
BTRC also announced that in the coming months, SIM and mobile device tracking systems will be integrated to completely eliminate the use of illegal or unregistered SIMs.
As of March 2025, Bangladesh has 186.2 million active SIMs, while the actual number of users is around 67.5 million. Among them, 80% of subscribers have fewer than 5 SIMs, 16% have between 6 and 10, and only 3% use more than 11 SIMs.