Best App to Forward iPhone SMS to WhatsApp, Compared

The best app to forward iPhone SMS to WhatsApp sends each text through WhatsApp’s own Shortcuts action, from your personal account, so no business account, API key or outside service is involved. Fwrd works that way, with no account and no Fwrd server, and its free plan includes WhatsApp for 15 forwards a month. It needs iOS 26 or later, so if your iPhone runs an older version, the table below shows which apps run on it.

What you need: an iPhone with WhatsApp installed and signed in, the WhatsApp contact or number that should get the texts, and a rule for which texts to forward, such as ones that contain the word code.

Which iPhone apps forward SMS to WhatsApp?

These six US App Store apps list WhatsApp as a destination. Ratings, minimum iOS and what each says about its servers come from Apple’s App Store data and each app’s own description, checked on November 4, 2026.

Prices and plans change, so check the purchase screen in your own storefront. For every destination, see the best SMS forwarding apps for iPhone.

What matters when the destination is WhatsApp

• Who actually sends it. On iPhone, an app can send a WhatsApp message on your behalf only through WhatsApp’s own Send Message action in Shortcuts, or through a paid WhatsApp Business account. The first sends from your own account to a chat you pick, with no Meta account to set up.
• One fixed recipient. If the contact has more than one WhatsApp number, Shortcuts stops to ask which one, and a locked iPhone can’t answer. Pick one number once and it runs on its own.
• Choosing which texts go. WhatsApp is where your family and friends are, so forward codes or delivery texts, not every conversation.
• The rest of your destinations. The same text often belongs in WhatsApp for family and email for records, from one automation.

Why I’d pick Fwrd for WhatsApp

I make Fwrd, so here’s my case, and each point is on its App Store page:

• WhatsApp’s own action does the sending, from your account, as if you sent it yourself. There’s no WhatsApp Business account, Meta API key or Fwrd bot.
• No account and no Fwrd server. Fwrd handles the text on your iPhone and hands it to WhatsApp’s action in the same shortcut.
• Guided setup hands you a ready-made shortcut with Fwrd’s action and WhatsApp’s, so there’s little to build.
• Include Who Sent It adds a From: line, so the person in WhatsApp knows where the text came from.
• One text counts once, even when it also goes to email or Slack.

For getting a home number’s codes while you’re away, see getting texts while traveling.

How to forward iPhone SMS to WhatsApp with Fwrd

1. Add WhatsApp in Fwrd. Tap +, choose WhatsApp, and follow the guided setup.
2. Create a Message automation in Shortcuts and set Message Contains to a word your texts include, such as code.
3. Let it run without asking. Turn off Confirm Before Run on iOS 27, or choose Run Immediately on iOS 26.
4. Add Fwrd’s action, Forward Message to All Destinations, with Message set to Shortcut Input.
5. Add WhatsApp’s Send Message below it. Search for WhatsApp, tap the WhatsApp app, and choose Send Message, not Send Message via WhatsApp. Set its message to Fwrd’s output and its recipient to one number.

Fwrd’s WhatsApp page answers the common questions, and the WhatsApp setup guide has a video of every tap.

What forwarding to WhatsApp can’t do

• No app can read your texts on its own. iPhone gives apps no access to your messages, so each one needs the Shortcuts automation you set up.
• It can’t forward texts you already have, only new ones that arrive after the automation is on.
• It doesn’t send pictures. Fwrd passes on only the words of each text.
• It can’t send from a phone without WhatsApp. WhatsApp has to be installed and signed in on the iPhone that gets the texts, and that iPhone has to be on and online.