How does upgrading work with Tmobile?

The only way to get a "free upgrade" is when you are leasing a phone (the so called Jump Lease), which is not the same as an EIP.   For EIP, there is no "cost" associated with an upgrade, but that is different than whether or not a new device requires a down payment.  The down payment, even for people with good credit, can still be hundreds of dollars -- it depends on the phone.  It seems that t-mobile likes to keep its payment plan to about 30 ish dollars per month..  so a new fangled iPhone might require a 200 dollar upfront payment.  They have a new plan for the xs max (1200 dollars for 128Gig) that goes over 3 years for people with excellent credit..  that still requires a 500 dollar down payment, but the monthly goes down to about 20. However if you buy the iPhone Xr, the new budget iPhone for only 799, there is no down payment, and payments would be around 33 per month (33 x 24 = 792)..  Obviously this can all be offset by the worth of the device you trade in, or any kind of promotion going on -- sometimes the promotion is a bill credit, meaning you'd still make your down payment, but your monthly payment would go down usually by the promotion divided over 24 months.

i had a samsung f20 phone on jump’  i traded it in 11/28/21 at best buy.  i was given $249 credit by tmobile and $200 by best buy on this phone.  I purchased an iphone 13 pro max.  the samsung phone still appears on my bill as an active lease.  the best buy rep has contacted tmobile on several occasions and told them that best buy has the phone.  i still have a tmobile account.  i transferred the number from the samsung phone to my iphone.  how do i get the samsung phone off my account?

I did a cell device upgrade [no cost] on two senior phones i had. the deal was do the upgrade, and continue with tmobile plan for 24 months, and each month a credit would wipe out the lease EIP amount for each phone. For 5 months, worked ok. Then with 19 months to go, suddenly the “credits” on monthly bill stopped about oct 22. called tmobile and talked to support and they told me that tmobile was NOT welching on the contract, and tmobile would get me my credits ie $75 per month till end of lease at 24 months. Still not done days later. More calls to Tmobile. For me, this is an obvious grab at an addition 20 months at $75 per month or about 1800 dollars, three times the retail price of the phone when lease made. watch out, and check your bills. they are dishonoring lease deals. This is VERY VERY BAD AND SEMMINGLY DISHONEST BY TMOBILE.

Looking at moving to Spectrum Wireless,  Been with TMobile for years and doesn’t give free phone upgrade.