Introduction
Calling anonymously — reaching someone without revealing your phone number — sounds simple. Dial *67, call, done.
For years, that was true. In 2026, the picture is more complicated, and the reason matters for anyone who relies on hidden caller ID for legitimate purposes.
STIR/SHAKEN, the FCC-mandated call authentication framework that US carriers have been deploying since 2021, has introduced a structural tension with anonymous calling: calls that suppress caller ID are increasingly classified as unauthenticated by terminating carriers and routed to voicemail, flagged as suspected spam, or blocked entirely before the recipient's phone rings. As of late 2025, more than 52.5 billion robocalls were placed in the US in a single year, most driven by spoofed caller IDs — and carrier spam filters, operating under FCC authorization to block calls likely to be illegal, often catch anonymous calls in the same sweep.
This guide covers five methods to call anonymously, what each one actually delivers in 2026, and the legal boundary between hiding your number (legal everywhere) and falsifying it (a federal crime).
- Why People Call Anonymously: 4 Legitimate Use Cases
- Method 1: *67 — One-Call Caller ID Suppression
- Method 2: Carrier-Level Caller ID Blocking
- Method 3: Phone Settings — Permanent Hide Number on iPhone and Android
- Method 4: Virtual Number Apps — A Different Number, Not a Hidden One
Why People Call Anonymously: 4 Legitimate Use Cases
Before choosing a method, it helps to match the approach to the actual need. Anonymous calling serves four distinct legitimate purposes that each have different privacy requirements:
Personal privacy in early-stage contact. Calling a seller on a marketplace listing, responding to a Craigslist ad, or reaching a business contact you don't yet fully trust — situations where you want the call to happen but don't want your personal mobile number saved before you've established the relationship.
Professional confidentiality. Journalists protecting source relationships, healthcare workers calling patients from personal devices, social workers making welfare checks outside office hours, and HR professionals conducting sensitive interviews all have professional reasons to separate their personal number from their work calls.
Domestic safety. Individuals escaping abusive situations who need to make calls without revealing their current location or new number to someone with a history of monitoring their communications.
Testing and verification. Businesses testing their own inbound call handling, IVR systems, or customer service queues without triggering CRM records tied to internal numbers.
A simpler long-term option for many of these cases is a dedicated set of virtual phone numbers instead of hiding your primary line.
Method 1: *67 — One-Call Caller ID Suppression
Dialing *67 before a US or Canadian phone number hides your caller ID for that single call. The recipient sees "Private Number," "Unknown," or "No Caller ID" instead of your digits.
No app, no account, no carrier change required — it works on any mobile or landline on any carrier.
How to use it: Dial *67 + the full number including area code (example: *67-555-867-5309). The call proceeds normally; your number is suppressed only for that call. Your next call without *67 shows your number as usual.
What it does not do: It does not work for calls to 911 — emergency services always receive your number. It does not work on calls to toll-free numbers (800, 888, 877, 866, 855, 844 prefixes) — these use ANI, which bypasses caller ID suppression.
It does not prevent your carrier from logging the call. It does not defeat STIR/SHAKEN: your call will be marked as unattested, which some carriers use as a spam signal.
*67 is best suited for occasional, one-off calls where the recipient is a personal contact who is unlikely to have auto-blocking of private numbers enabled.
Method 2: Carrier-Level Caller ID Blocking
Every major US carrier — AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile — allows customers to suppress their caller ID on all outgoing calls at the account level. This eliminates the need to dial *67 before each call.
How to enable it: Contact your carrier's customer service and request "outgoing caller ID blocking" or "permanent caller ID suppression." Some carriers apply this at no cost; others charge $2–5 per month. The setting appears on the account and affects all outgoing calls from your line.
How to override it for specific calls: Dial *82 before a number to unblock your caller ID for that one call only — the reverse of *67.
The 2026 limitation: The same STIR/SHAKEN problem applies. A call originating with suppressed caller ID receives no attestation from your carrier, because STIR/SHAKEN attestation requires a verifiable number to sign.
Carriers on the receiving end increasingly apply blocking logic to unattested calls, particularly from mobile lines — meaning your suppressed call may never reach the recipient's phone.
Method 3: Phone Settings — Permanent Hide Number on iPhone and Android
Both iOS and Android allow you to suppress caller ID through the phone's native settings, without needing to contact your carrier.
iPhone: Settings → Phone → Show My Caller ID → toggle off. Your number is now suppressed on all outgoing calls until you toggle it back on.
Note that this setting uses your carrier's suppression infrastructure — it produces the same network-level result as permanent carrier blocking, and the STIR/SHAKEN limitations apply equally.
Android: The path varies by manufacturer and carrier, but the general route is: Phone app → Settings (three-dot menu) → Calls → Additional Settings → Caller ID → Hide Number. On some Samsung devices, the path is Phone → More → Settings → Supplementary Services → Show Your Caller ID.
This method is convenient for users who want blanket suppression without calling their carrier, but offers no privacy advantage over carrier-level blocking — it uses the same mechanism.
Method 5: Full Privacy Suites — MySudo and Compartmentalized Identity
MySudo is the most comprehensive anonymous communication option available to consumers in 2026. Rather than providing just a second number, MySudo provides up to nine complete digital identities, each including a phone number, an encrypted email address, a private browser, and a virtual payment card — all isolated from each other and from your real identity.
Calls made through MySudo use VoIP and display the MySudo number. MySudo does not log call content. The app is available on iOS and Android; subscription starts at $0.99/month for one identity and scales up for multiple identities.
MySudo is most appropriate for users with sustained high-privacy needs: journalists managing source relationships across multiple stories, individuals separating professional and personal lives with full compartmentalization, or anyone operating in a context where a single number linking back to their real identity creates a genuine safety risk.
For most day-to-day anonymous calling needs — calling a marketplace seller, making a sensitive work call from a personal device — Google Voice or Hushed provides sufficient separation at significantly lower complexity.
The STIR/SHAKEN Problem: Why Anonymous Calls Are Harder to Deliver
STIR/SHAKEN is the FCC-mandated call authentication framework that US carriers have been required to deploy since 2021. It works by assigning an attestation level — A (full), B (partial), or C (gateway) — to each call based on whether the carrier can verify that the calling party is authorized to use the number displayed in caller ID.
Anonymous calls created by *67, permanent carrier suppression, or phone settings produce calls with no caller ID — and therefore no number to attest to. These calls typically receive no attestation at all, or are marked with a specific "anonymous" indicator that some terminating carriers use as a negative signal in their spam-scoring algorithms.
The FCC's STIR/SHAKEN rules authorize carriers to block calls that are "highly likely to be illegal" and to use "reasonable analytics" based on traffic patterns. Originating service providers face documented challenges supporting legitimate anonymous calls — calls that request privacy may be flagged as potential spam or blocked by terminating providers, even when the underlying caller has a legitimate reason for suppression.
The practical consequence: if you need your anonymous call to reliably reach the recipient in 2026, a virtual number app that generates a real, attestable caller ID is more reliable than *67 or phone-settings suppression. For businesses managing outbound call programs, Teloz's voice authentication and STIR/SHAKEN compliance features ensure every outbound call carries the correct attestation level and is not mistakenly flagged as spam.
See the full platform at teloz.com.
For background on how carriers display and verify caller identity, see Wikipedia's entry on caller ID.
“Learn 5 ways to call anonymously — from *67 and carrier settings to burner apps and privacy suites — plus what STIR/SHAKEN means for anonymous calls.”
Legal Limits: Hiding Your Number vs. Spoofing It
There is a clear federal legal line between hiding your number and falsifying it:
Hiding your number is legal. Using *67, carrier suppression, phone settings, or a virtual number app to prevent your real number from appearing in caller ID is legal in all 50 US states. The FCC explicitly permits caller ID blocking for personal privacy.
Spoofing your number is a federal crime. Under the Truth in Caller ID Act (47 U.S.C. § 227(e)), causing a false or misleading caller ID to be transmitted with intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain something of value is prohibited. Penalties include fines of up to $10,000 per violation.
In August 2024, the FCC entered a consent decree with Lingo Telecom for STIR/SHAKEN violations involving thousands of calls with spoofed caller IDs — a signal that enforcement is operationally active, not just theoretical.
Harassment calls are separately illegal regardless of whether caller ID is suppressed. Anonymous or not, repeated unwanted calls to an individual may constitute harassment under state law; calls made with intent to annoy, abuse, or threaten are federal crimes under 47 U.S.C. § 223.
For businesses that need to manage outbound calling with verified caller ID — ensuring every call passes STIR/SHAKEN attestation and reaches the recipient — Teloz's cloud communications platform handles caller ID authentication, outbound number management, and real-time call analytics from a single dashboard.
Businesses that need a compliant, professional line instead of a hidden one typically set one up through a business phone system.
Conclusion
Calling anonymously in 2026 is not as simple as dialing *67 — though *67 still works for many situations. The growth of STIR/SHAKEN authentication and carrier-level spam filtering means that calls with suppressed caller ID are increasingly treated as suspicious, not private.
For calls that need to reliably reach the recipient, a virtual number app like Google Voice or Hushed produces a real, attestable number that travels through carrier networks without triggering spam flags.
The legal line is clear: hiding your number is your right; spoofing a false number is a federal crime. Stay on the right side of that line, match your method to your actual use case, and your anonymous calls will reach their destination more reliably than *67 alone guarantees in the current network environment.
