Please read the updates posted at the bottom of the original post. Every year I add updates at the bottom.

Disclaimer: I do not work or represent Airtel in any shape or form. I just happened to have done this every year with US iPhones going eSIM only since iPhone 14 series. This post and any of my comments are out of my own experiences and based on my learnings in comments from other people.

I’ve been living in the US and maintaining my Airtel number with physical SIM for about a decade now. I’ve been using iPhone Xs/11/12/13 Pro Max with US carrier on eSIM and Airtel physical SIM. I'm now upgrading to iPhone 14 Pro Max here in the US but the US iPhone 14 models don’t a have physical SIM slot at all unlike previous iPhones. For iPhone 14, it’s only eSIM and now I’m not sure if I can activate eSIM from outside of India. Has anybody done this before? Doesn’t matter which device it is, just want to know whether SIM to eSIM migration is possible when you’re not in India. TIA I have done it many times now. Read along.

Note about Email on your account

Please be aware that the email you see in airtel app on your profile may or may not be the email they acknowledge as yours that you’ll have to use for sending them the eSIM transfer text. You may view what email is on your account if you login to Airtel account on web and into Profile page (as of Sept 2024). If you’re receiving error about wrong email, head over to the Airtel app and ask the chatbot to update the email of your liking. It does it instantaneously. Once your confirm the email, you may immediately proceed with the process.

UPDATE

Ok confirmed. Do not attempt moving Airtel SIM to eSIM while on international roaming. Learned this a hard way. Now all my services are back and functioning after a lot of back and forth with Airtel. Welp, I am just gonna get a cheap used iPhone to hold on to this card. I want iPhone so that this number stays on iMessage and I don’t need to carry that iPhone everywhere I go and can see texts synced with all my other Apple devices.

UPDATE: April 2023

I did it. Followed the process as described on Airtel website. For some reason when my Network Selection was set to Automatic, my phone was connected to T-Mobile and I never received a confirmation call. I don’t know why but I just tried to select Manual and then AT&T. Got confirmation call and within 2 hours, it was activated. Took 24 hours for messaging to work though.

UPDATE: September 2023

Did it again. Moved my Airtel eSIM from iPhone 14 Pro Max to new iPhone 15 Pro Max. Exact same process of moving from pSIM to eSIM. Messaging is yet to start working as it hasn’t been 24 hours since I did it. Will update once that starts working again.

AND all is fine. Texting, Calling both incoming, and outgoing is working fine.

Apparently Airtel app now has “Upgrade to eSIM” functionality. I haven’t tested it but it’s there.

UPDATE: September 2024

Did it yet again. Moved my eSIM from iPhone 15 Pro Max to iPhone 16 Pro Max. The Airtel app way does not work though. I sent an SMS to 121 with ESIMQR <My Email>. Do not include angle brackets < or > in the message you type. Thanks to u/random_user_699 for this tip in one of the comments. Like I did last year, I made sure that my phone was connected to AT&T network because last year, when it was on Automatic, it did not receive a confirmation call. With explicit connection to AT&T, I did. On a confirmation call, after you confirm, the IVR does not acknowledge that you confirmed. Just thanks you for calling Airtel and hangs up (rude!). I then received a QR code in the email, which I scanned on the new device and it is now activating it. They say it will take about 2 hours for activation and 24 hours for SMS to work.

Activation is done but waiting for 24 hours to pass for SMS to work again.

After exactly 24 hours, SMS service has also been restored.

Later on, I did the same process for my spouse’s Airtel number transferring from iPhone 14 Pro to iPhone 16 Pro. I had to do IR recharge this time. Without it all communication except Airtel official messages were blocked. I did a one day IR pack and everything worked out.