How to Check My MTN Number in Nigeria

MTN’s self-service menu, *123#, is the one number-check route we could find in MTN’s own words. A page on its old website gave these steps:

1. Dial *123# on the MTN line.
2. Reply 1 for My Tools.
3. Reply 5 for Your Number.

That page, saved by the Internet Archive from 2011 until 2017, is gone, and MTN Nigeria’s current website has no page on checking your number at all. The menu may not look the same today. MTN’s current pages still send you into *123# for other jobs: *123*2# changes your tariff plan, and *123*7# followed by option 4 blocks a lost or stolen line. None of them says what sits under option 1. So read what is on your screen and do not trust anybody’s digits for the later steps, ours included.

The old page said using the menu is free, that it works on prepaid and postpaid lines, and that a session closes after 90 seconds. *123# is a USSD menu, so it works on a button phone as well as a smartphone and needs no data connection. On an iPhone or an Android phone, type it into the Phone app’s keypad and press call.

If you are in the menu to change plan anyway, which one to move to is worked out in the best MTN tariff plan for calls.

Do *123*1*1# and *663# show your number?

Both are widely quoted, and neither is anywhere on MTN Nigeria’s website, Help Centre included. Other branches of *123# are there, but not *123*1*1#. The route some sites give through *123#, then “Account Info”, then “My Number”, has the same problem: the menu is MTN’s, but no current page names those options.

Some of these may still respond on your line. MTN does not publish them, so we make no promise either way. If one fails, or opens a menu you did not expect, go back to *123# or use the app.

Find it in the myMTN NG app

This is the self-service route MTN’s website does describe. MTN’s page for the app says you can check your SIM profile details in it, along with your airtime and data balance. The steps it gives:

1. Download myMTN NG from Google Play or the App Store. It is free. MTN also says you can text myMTN to 5018 to get the link.
2. Open the app and tap “Let’s get started”.
3. Choose how to sign in: Apple, Google, Facebook or phone number.
4. If you choose phone number, enter your MTN number, tap Continue, and type in the 6-digit code MTN sends to the line.

The phone number option asks for the very thing you are looking for, so pick one of the other three. MTN’s pages do not say on which screen the number appears, so look under your profile once you are in.

MTN’s page on wrong profile details says the app takes its information from the SIM that is set as the default for mobile data. Switch off Wi-Fi and use the MTN line’s own data when you open the app.

Call 300, or ring a phone beside you

300 is the customer care number on MTN’s contact page, and the Nigerian Communications Commission made it the helpline code on every network. The 180 you may see quoted is not on MTN’s website. Call from the line you are asking about. MTN’s assistant, Zigi, is on WhatsApp at +234 903 300 0001 if you would sooner type.

Your number also shows on the screen of whoever you call, unless you have hidden it. MTN’s own Missed Call Alert page describes the alert as showing the caller’s number. A text message to that phone shows it as well. Either needs a little airtime. With none on the line, a call-me-back request is the free way to reach that second phone, though *133#, the code on MTN’s old website, is not on its current one. We cover what its older pages said in call me back codes in Nigeria.

Airtel, if you also carry one of its SIMs, is the network that does publish a code for this. It is on our page about how to check your Airtel number.

The number is not on a new SIM’s pack

MTN’s prepaid terms say your phone number is only generated after the SIM is put into a phone. What MTN says is printed on the starter pack is the PUK, the eight-digit code that unlocks a SIM after three wrong PIN attempts. So put the SIM in, register it at an MTN outlet with your NIN, and then use the menu or the app as above.

MTN numbers linked to your NIN

MTN points to the app again. Its guide to adding numbers in myMTN NG gives these steps:

1. Log in and tap the floating action button.
2. Select “Manage numbers”.
3. Tap the plus icon.

MTN says phone numbers linked to the same NIN pop up there automatically, ready to add, and that you can add up to five other MTN numbers. This shows MTN lines only. Neither MTN’s website nor the NCC’s FAQ describes a code that lists every line registered to a NIN across all networks.

MTN also has a NIN Status Portal. Its help page describes three steps: enter your phone number, receive a one-time code, and read the result. MTN says it is free and that you can check as many of your own numbers as you can receive codes on.

MTN’s NIN codes

MTN documents three codes, all on *996, which the NCC set as the shared NIN code for every network. Dial *996*1#, then enter your NIN, to link it to the line you are dialling from. MTN’s NIN linking page adds that any MTN store can do it for you. *996# confirms that the SIM is linked, and *996*3# retrieves your NIN.

The NCC’s own FAQ also gives *996*NIN# as a direct way to submit the number. It still lists *785# for MTN. MTN’s website does not.

Finding out who owns an MTN number

MTN’s website offers no lookup by number. What it does have is WhoDeyCall, a paid service that shows the name of whoever is calling you. You join by dialling *4800#.