Summary

  • From 29 October, sections 151–153 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 make possession and supply of a SIM farm offences, with distinct statutory defences.
  • Five or more SIMs are only the start of the test: the device must be capable of using them for calls or messages. A supplier’s defence also depends on recipient checks and a record made before supply.

The law switches on today. The useful question is not “How many slots does the box have?” It is “What can the device do, and why is someone holding or supplying it?” Britain’s SIM-farm rules begin with a number, but they do not end there.

Section 153 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 defines a SIM farm as a device capable of using five or more SIM cards, simultaneously or interchangeably, to make calls to numbers in national or international numbering plans, or to send or receive messages from those numbers. “Receive” matters. The definition reaches equipment capable of taking verification messages as well as equipment built to send a wall of texts. It does not require prosecutors to prove that a fraud was completed before the device falls within the definition.

Sections 151 and 152 create the possession and supply offences. For possession, a person has a defence if they prove good reason or lawful authority. Parliament names broadcasting, operating or maintaining public transport, operating or maintaining an electronic communications network, and tracking or otherwise monitoring freight. The list is open-ended.

That boundary is practical, not decorative. The Home Office says a bonded-IP video encoder may contain more than five SIMs yet fall outside the definition when it sends video, audio or programme data and is not capable of making calls or sending messages. When equipment does meet the definition, a broadcaster can still have a good reason to possess it. Transport gateways and freight trackers may also qualify for that defence, even where their hardware is capable of calls or texts.

The supplier’s defence is a separate test. Before supply, the supplier must have been acting in the course of a business or have had a good reason or lawful authority to possess the device; must have taken reasonable steps to satisfy themselves that the recipient would have a good reason or lawful authority; and must have made a record. Section 152 lists the required record: supply date, device description, recipient name and relevant registered number, address and registered office where applicable, and the steps taken to check the intended use. A business sale alone does not complete that defence.

No licence is required for lawful possession or supply, the Home Office guidance says. The change is a criminal-law boundary around a defined device and a documented chain of legitimate use. That gives equipment makers, dealers and network users something more useful than a press-release label: a test they can apply to capability, purpose and transaction records.

One issue remains untested on commencement day: how a court will assess a device whose calling or messaging capability is technically present but disabled in a particular configuration. That turns on the statutory word “capable”; the first case records will show how configuration evidence is treated.

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