How to Send a Fax Without a Fax Machine

Plenty of offices still ask for a fax: insurers, hospitals, courts, landlords, government agencies and the IRS. Very few people still own a fax machine. You do not need one. A fax is a phone call between two machines, and a service can make that call for you from a file on your phone or computer.

This guide covers the ways to send one, how to prepare the document so it arrives readable, why a fax sometimes does not go through, and what to keep afterwards.

Your options

There are three common ways to send a fax without owning the machine.

An online fax service. You upload a PDF or photos of the pages, enter the number, and the service dials the receiving machine. Some services work by subscription and give you your own fax number. Others charge per fax and need no account.
A store with a fax counter. Many office supply and shipping stores send faxes for a fee. You bring the paper, they feed it into their machine.
Email to fax. Some subscription services let you send a fax by emailing an attachment to a special address. It usually needs an account set up in advance.

If you send faxes rarely, a pay-per-fax online service is usually the simplest: nothing to install, nothing to cancel later.

What you need before you start

The full fax number. US and Canadian numbers have 10 digits: a 3-digit area code and a 7-digit number. The country code for both is 1.
The document. A PDF is best. A clear phone photo of each page also works.
A cover page, if the recipient expects one. It says who the fax is for, who sent it and how many pages there are. Offices that receive many faxes use it to route yours to the right person.

Preparing the document

A fax is sent in black and white, at a resolution of about 200 dots per inch across the page. That is enough for ordinary text, and too little for fine print, pencil or pale colors. A few habits help the pages arrive readable.

Use black or dark blue ink for anything handwritten, including signatures.
Photograph pages flat, in good light, with the whole page in the frame and no shadow across it.
Keep the pages in order. The receiving office reads them in the order they arrive.
Remove blank pages you do not mean to send. Each page takes time on the line.
Do not send color photos of documents if a scan is available. Colored backgrounds turn gray and can hide text.

Why a fax does not go through

When a fax fails, the reason is almost always on the receiving end. These are the usual ones.

The line is busy

Busy offices and government agencies receive many faxes on a few lines. A busy signal is common, and trying again later usually works.

Nobody answers

The receiving machine may be switched off, out of paper on an older model, or set to answer only after many rings.

A person or a voicemail answers instead of a fax machine

If the number is a voice line, there is no fax tone and nothing can be sent. Check the number with the recipient. A fax number and a phone number are often one digit apart.

The call drops partway

A noisy connection can break a transmission in the middle. Sending again usually fixes it.

A good service retries a busy or unanswered line on its own, and tells you plainly if the fax could not be delivered.

What to keep afterwards

Keep the confirmation, sometimes called a transmission report. It records the date and time, the number dialed, the number of pages and the result. If anyone later asks whether you sent something, it is your record. Keep it with the document you sent. Our article on what a fax confirmation shows explains what it proves and what it does not.

Sensitive documents

People fax tax forms, medical records and contracts precisely because the recipient will not take email. Before you upload such a document anywhere, check two things.

How long the service keeps your file. A copy kept for months is a copy that can leak. Look for a stated deletion period.
Who can open it. The file should never sit at a public web address, and a status page should not show its contents.

Also check the number twice. A fax sent to the wrong number cannot be recalled.

A note on advertising

Federal law, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act as amended by the Junk Fax Prevention Act of 2005, generally prohibits sending unsolicited advertisements by fax. Send faxes to people and offices that expect them.

Sending one with FaxReceipt

FaxReceipt sends a single fax to any US or Canadian number from a phone or a computer, with no account. You upload a PDF, JPG or PNG of up to 25 pages, add an optional cover page and pay once. We retry a busy or unanswered line automatically, refund you in full if the fax cannot be delivered, and email you the transmission report. Your file is deleted after seven days.