How to Fix iPhone Personal Hotspot Not Working Issue

If your iPhone Personal Hotspot feature is not working, ensure the internet works and you’re entering the right password.
You can also try disabling Low Data Mode or restarting your phone’s Wi-Fi.
If your iPhone Personal Hotspot still won’t work, then restarting the phone or resetting network settings might help.

Your iPhone personal hotspot feature can come in handy in so many ways. For instance, if your home internet is experiencing an outage, or if you brought your PC to a café that doesn’t offer Wi-Fi access, you can instead use your cellular data plan to get your other devices online. But when you try to connect to it, it won’t work. Why?

This question has many possible answers, and most of them depend on the cause. Here’s how to fix your iPhone Personal Hotspot issue.

Note: information in this article applied to all iPhone models including: iPhone 11, iPhone 12, iPhone 13, iPhone 14, iPhone 15, iPhone 16, iPhone 17, and iPhone SE..

How to fix your iPhone Personal Hotspot when it’s not working

If your iPhone Personal Hotspot isn’t working, run through this troubleshooting list to figure out why. Try connecting to Personal Hotspot again after each step.

Make sure your iPhone’s internet connection is working

The first thing you should do when your iPhone personal hotspot is not working is to make sure that you are connected to the Internet via cellular data. On your iPhone, go to Settings ⇒ Cellular and check to make sure Cellular Data is switched on. You should also try to use the internet on your phone to make sure you’re not in an area with slow or poor reception.

You should also check and ensure you haven’t exceeded your cellular data limit for the month — if you’re on a prepaid plan with a limit, your data speeds will be throttled when you pass it, rendering your hotspot essentially useless. To solve this issue, contact your data provider.

Note: If you set up your iPhone to use two SIMs, Personal Hotspot uses the line you select for cellular data.

Make sure Personal Hotspot is set up properly on your iPhone

On your iPhone, go to Settings ⇒ Personal Hotspot and check to make sure Allow Others to Join is on.
Remember the iPhone’s Wi-Fi network name and password that appear on this screen. Optionally, you can change the Wi-Fi password. Your Wi-Fi network name is your iPhone name, which you can change in Settings ⇒ General ⇒ About.
Stay on this screen until you connect the other device to your iPhone Personal Hotspot.

If you can’t find or turn on Personal Hotspot on your iPhone, check that your wireless carrier enabled it and that your wireless plan supports it.

Turn Personal Hotspot on and off on your iPhone

On your iPhone, go to Settings ⇒ Personal Hotspot, then turn off Allow Others to Join.
Wait for about 15 seconds, then turn on Allow Others to Join.

Make sure the password is right

If you see a password error when you try to join Personal Hotspot, look at the password on your iPhone and make sure you’ve entered it correctly on the device you’re connecting with — if it’s not correct, you won’t be able to connect to your iPhone Personal Hotspot.

On your iPhone, go to Settings ⇒ Personal Hotspot to see your Personal Hotspot password. If you’re still having trouble, you can also change the password to something that’s easier to enter without mistakes.

Turn your Wi-Fi on and off

Speaking of system bugs, even though your phone’s Wi-Fi isn’t usually affected by them, it’s not impossible for that to be the case.

If it doesn’t seem to be working, try switching it off and back on again and see if that fixes the issue.

On your iPhone, go to Settings and tap Wi-Fi.
Tap the toggle for Wi-Fi to turn it off.
Wait about 15 seconds.
Tap the toggle for Wi-Fi to turn it on.

On the device that needs to connect to your iPhone Personal Hotspot, turn Wi-Fi off and back on as well. Also, make sure you connect to the correct Wi-Fi network. The network name is the same as your iPhone, and the Personal Hotspot icon might appear next to it.

Disable Low Data Mode

Low Data Mode is an iOS feature designed to restrict background network use and save cellular data. If the feature is enabled, it could be the reason why your iPhone Personal Hotspot is not working. Try turning Low Data Mode off and see if that fixes the issue.

On your iPhone, go to Settings and tap Cellular.
Tap Cellular Data Options, select Data Mode, then turn off Low Data Mode.

Turn on Maximize Compatibility

On your iPhone, go to Settings ⇒ Personal Hotspot and turn on Maximize Compatibility. Then try connecting your devices again to your iPhone Personal Hotspot.

Note: When you turn on Maximize Compatibility, internet performance and Wi-Fi security might be reduced for devices connected to the hotspot.

Try restarting your devices

It’s possible the problems you’re experiencing with your hotspot could be easily solved by restarting your devices. Restart your iPhone and the other device that needs to connect to Personal Hotspot.

Reset Network Settings

On your iPhone, go to Settings ⇒ General ⇒ Transfer or Reset iPhone ⇒ Reset, then tap Reset Network Settings. This also resets Wi-Fi networks and passwords, cellular settings, and VPN and APN settings you’ve used before.

Connect to your iPhone Personal Hotspot with Bluetooth

Wi-Fi isn’t the only way to connect devices to your iPhone hotspot. You can connect a phone or computer to the Personal Hotspot on your iPhone using Bluetooth instead of Wi-Fi. Both devices must have Bluetooth turned on.

To connect a device to the Personal Hotspot on your iPhone using Bluetooth, follow the steps below:

On your iPhone, go to Settings and tap Bluetooth.
Tap the toggle for Bluetooth to turn it on — when it’s on, it will have a green background instead of gray.
Connect to the iPhone via Bluetooth from your other device, and confirm the connection on your phone.

Connect to your iPhone Personal Hotspot with a USB cable

You can also connect a Mac or Windows device to the Personal Hotspot on your iPhone using the USB cable that came with your iPhone (or another cable that matches the ports on your iPhone and the other device).

Note: If you see an alert on your iPhone that says Trust This Computer?, tap Trust. You may be asked to enter your device passcode to proceed. If you see an alert on your Mac that says “Allow accessory to connect?”, click Allow.

As soon as it’s connected by a cable, your Mac or Windows device will be able to use the cellular connection on your iPhone.

Conclusion

In most cases, this is all you can do to fix iPhone hotspot issues. If none of these troubleshooting options solve your problem, it may be due to a software bug, or you might need to take your phone in for further inspection.