Can you get Google Voice in Canada?

What Google actually offers a Canadian account

Google Voice is a United States product. Signing up needs a Google account set to the United States and a U.S. phone number to link to, and every number it hands out is a U.S. number. There is no Canadian consumer version and Google has not announced one.

Google Workspace sells a paid Voice add-on that a Canadian business can buy. It is not the free product under another name, and it needs a Workspace account. Sending a text to a Canadian mobile number is not supported. For an ad that Canadians will text, that limit is the one that ends the conversation.

The workarounds, and what each one costs you

• A VPN and a Google account set to the United States. People do this and it often works on the day. What you are left holding is a U.S. number: some Canadian buyers will not text a U.S. area code, and Google can close the account when it notices. It is against the terms.
• Borrowing a U.S. number to verify with. Same outcome, and the number now rests on a verification you do not control.
• Reading a six-digit code back to a stranger. That is the same request pointed the other way, and it is a scam: somebody is opening a Google Voice account against your number while you read it out. The guide on the Google Voice verification code scam, linked below, says what to do if you already sent one.

The free Canadian options, first

If what you want is a permanent second line that rings, one of the first three below is your answer. None of them is us, and a Canadian number that costs nothing and rings beats everything further down this page.

• TextNow. A free Canadian number inside an app, paid for with ads. It takes calls and texts, and the number stays yours while you keep using it.
• Fongo. A free Canadian number carrying calls and texts over data. Same shape: an app on your phone, a line you keep.
• A second line from your own carrier. Most Canadian carriers will add one to the handset you already own for a monthly fee. It behaves like an ordinary phone number, because it is one.
• The listing site’s own messages. Kijiji, Facebook Marketplace and most rental boards carry a chat that reaches you without showing a number. It costs nothing, and it only reaches people browsing that site.

Where a listing number is a different tool

TheLocalRing gives you a Canadian number you publish and then end. Pick a city or type an area code and take a number from what is in stock that day, put it in the ad, and texts sent to it arrive in your email, in up to five inboxes at once. You reply from your inbox and the reply leaves as an ordinary text from the listing number. No app to install and no second SIM.

On a Monthly Canadian number, calls ring up to five phones you nominate, whoever picks up hears the caller’s number read out before they speak, and every forwarded call reaches you by email, answered or missed. Monthly includes 300 call minutes. On a pass there is no call forwarding at all: a caller hears a short spoken message asking them to text instead.

Read the limits before you pay. It is receive-first, so you can answer anybody who has texted you in the last 30 days and you cannot text somebody first. The first reply each person gets carries a short label you choose, for example "Sofa seller via TheLocalRing. Reply STOP to end.", so the relay is visible to them. Your reply cannot carry a picture, a reply longer than about 1,500 characters is cut short, and there is no voicemail. A Canadian number sends texts within Canada only. It will not receive verification codes: banks, marketplaces and app signups refuse numbers like this one.

When a pass ends, forwarding stops. The number is held for you for seven more days, then returns to a shared pool and may be assigned to somebody else. Your ad can outlive the pass, so a stranger texting that number weeks later reaches whoever holds it next. Monthly keeps the number until you cancel it.

Which one fits

• A free permanent second line on the phone in your pocket: TextNow or Fongo.
• A number to print on an ad, a sign or a flyer and switch off afterwards: a listing number.
• A business line with extensions, a shared inbox and a record per customer: a business phone system, none of the above.
• Verification codes for a bank, a marketplace or an app signup: none of these. Use your own mobile number.
• A U.S. number because an American client expects one: the paid Workspace add-on, or a U.S. number from an app such as Hushed or Burner. A U.S. number from this site takes texts only and never rings.

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