How to Get a Virtual Fax Number for Free
Faxing has been a popular way to transmit documents quickly and remotely using phone lines. Today, you don’t need a bulky fax machine or a phone line — you can fax over the internet using a digital fax service like Fax.Live.
Sending out a fax still requires you to have a phone number. Think of this phone number as an address that you put on a letter you’re sending. Similarly, you need a fax number if you want to receive faxes (think of this as your address). But how can you get a virtual fax number? How do digital fax numbers work?
In this article, we’ll talk about how free fax numbers work and how you can get an electronic fax number to use for either personal or business.
NOTE: A free fax number is included with every Fax.Live paid subscription, as long as the subscription is active. Subscriptions must be active in order to avoid losing the fax number.
How it Works: Free Fax Numbers
A free fax number is a phone number that you can use exclusively for faxing documents. If you have a fax machine at your home or office, it is probably connected to a phone line. Unlike a free fax number, this phone line will have a monthly payment associated with it, depending on your service provider. This phone line may sometimes be shared with a telephone (though this is increasingly rare). If that phone line is in use, either by the fax machine or a person, it can’t be used at the same time by the other!
This is where free fax numbers and online faxing are so handy. Free fax numbers:
- Save money on monthly phone lines
- Don’t have restrictions on usage of minutes
- Don’t require a fax machine to use
- Still work like a normal fax number (you can give others your free fax number to receive documents)
If you use a digital fax service, you’ll typically be assigned a free fax number that’s exclusive to you that you can use to receive incoming faxes. This fax number will also be on the cover page of your outgoing faxes, so the recipient knows your fax line number.
Getting a Free Electronic Fax Number
When you sign up for a digital fax service like Fax.Live, you’ll make an account with a username attached to your account. When you log in, you’ll see your digital fax number on the left side of the Fax.Live dashboard.
When you create an account, we include a free fax number for you to use.
For your senders and recipients, a digital fax number works exactly the same as an analog fax number. They’ll still be able to enter your fax number into their fax machines and send you documents. When you fax a document, the recipient won’t notice a difference, whether it is transmitted via online fax or dedicated fax machine.
This makes it extremely easy to get started faxing without buying a fax machine or setting up a phone line!
Here’s more on how online faxing works.
Using a Digital Free Fax Number
When you set up your Fax.Live account and generate a free online fax number, you can give this number to others so they can send you documents, as long as your account remains active. Your digital fax number works as an incoming fax number, so you can receive faxes from both digital and analog fax machines alike.
When you send a fax to someone, you can put your free fax number down as the return number so the recipient knows where the fax came from and what number to send faxes to.
To include your return fax number, mark the optional free cover sheet. Learn more about how fax cover sheets work.
FAQs
Can I use my free fax number for business?
Yes — if you create a Fax.Live account for your business, you can use your fax number for a business. Once you generate a free fax number, you’ll see incoming faxes in the Fax.Live inbox. Anyone logged into your business’s Fax.Live account will then be able to access the faxes that you received.
Is my free fax number exclusive to me?
Yes! The only person who will see the faxes you receive is you. Your dedicated fax number is yours and yours alone so long as you keep your account in good standing.
How is Fax.Live priced?
You can try Fax.Live today for free to see if it’s right for you. You’ll get a temporary fax number that you can use to test our services. Once you’ve tried out Fax.Live, you can pick out a paid plan that includes all of our digital faxing, sending, and receiving services. We offer both annual and monthly plans.