Hopefully by this point you will be set up with everything working. That wasn’t the case for me. This is the point at which the two customer service reps I spoke with by phone stopped — they couldn’t figure out what to do next. I finally was able to speak to someone via Verizon chat who informed me that even though their reference material says they should be able to transfer a number from one eSIM to another, in practice that doesn’t work.

If you find yourself in this situation, inform them that you first need to activate your number on the physical SIM in your new phone. Once that’s done you can then transfer that number to the eSIM of your new phone.

Transfer Your Number from the old iPhone’s eSIM to the new iPhone’s Physical SIM

In order to do this you have to provide Verizon with your Physical SIM’s IMEI number and ICCID number. You can find both of these by going to Settings > General > About and then scrolling down to the Physical SIM section.

After you provide this information it will take a minute or two before your new phone is activated on the Verizon network. You may be instructed to turn your phone off, wait 10 seconds, then power it on again with WiFi disabled.

Transfer Your Number from the Physical SIM to eSIM

Now that you finally have your number on your new phone’s physical SIM, you are able to transfer it to your new phone’s eSIM. You will have to provide the Verizon service rep your Digital SIM’s IMEI number. Again, that can be found at Settings > General > About. Scroll down to the section entitled Digital SIM and you’ll see it there.

After you provide all of this information you’ll receive another email from Verizon with another QR code. Ensure your WiFi is connected, then go to Settings > Cellular > Add Cellular Plan and scan the QR code. It can take up to 5 minutes to take you to the next step (it took less than 30 seconds for me), but you’ll see a new screen display asking you to add a new cellular plan. You’ll be prompted to set a label for this new line and specify which line’s cellular data you want to use.

At this point you can follow the instructions from Apple’s page on “Setting up your cellular plan with eSIM” (scroll down to that section).