IMEI Check by Country

A phone's history lives in the databases of the market it was sold in. These pages cover what that means for handsets from each country — and check any of them free.

Most free IMEI tools read one or two American carrier feeds and nothing else, and the lock and blacklist lookups on this site are in that group. Feed one a phone bought in Lagos, Lahore or Lisbon and it returns "unknown", which readers understandably mistake for "clean". It is not a verdict; it is a blind spot. The check on this site still identifies the handset from its IMEI, labels an unanswered blacklist line as not a clean result, and these pages point you to the local register that does know the device.

Country matters in a second way too. Several markets require an imported IMEI to be registered locally before the phone may stay on the network, and a handset that skips that step loses service weeks after it arrives — with no theft report against it anywhere. Knowing which regime applies where is the difference between a phone that works and an expensive brick.

If the phone you are checking has crossed a border — and in the second-hand market most of them have — check it in the country it was first sold in as well as where you are buying it. Reports follow the IMEI, not the owner, so a device flagged in the country it was sold in stays flagged there wherever it turns up next.