Discord Phone Verification Already Used: Why It Happens and How to Fix It

This error message is a common problem that Discord users may encounter when trying to set up or change their phone numbers. The error message could appear like this:

“This phone number is unable to be associated with this account.”

“An existing Discord account is already using this number.”

In short, Discord believes the phone number you’re attempting to use has been associated with another account.

Discord requires phone verification for two reasons. First, Discord needs to prevent spam bots from joining your community. Second, it’s part of Discord’s overall strategy to move away from Google Voice and VoIP-based phone numbers in favor of real SIM-based phone numbers.

Discord allows for phone number sharing

When a user tries to add a new phone number or modify an existing phone number on an existing account, they may see one of these messages.

You can try to remove the existing number association by removing the phone number from any other accounts you may have access to.

If you cannot, then contact Discord Support to prove that you own the number (and perhaps that the previous owner was a spammer). You can do so here: support.discord.com/hc/en-us/requests/new. Alternatively, go to Help & Support > Account Verification.

Note that there’s a mandatory waiting period after you’ve removed a phone number before you can reuse it. This is to ensure that we don’t have people reusing numbers immediately.