Overview
Search for the best travel eSIM and you get the same page fifteen times: a price table, a discount code, and a verdict that happens to favour whoever pays the highest commission. The trouble with that format isn't only the bias — it's that the numbers are wrong. eSIM pricing changes monthly, and when we checked in August 2026 the top-ranking comparisons were still quoting Airalo's pre-hike Japan pricing from before the increase earlier this year.
So this comparison is built the other way round. The prices are here, dated and clearly labelled as illustrative, and we'll point you at a live aggregator for the real ones. What gets the detailed treatment instead is the set of things that don't change monthly and that actually decide which provider suits you: whether "unlimited" means unlimited, what happens when you tether a laptop, and the fact that most travel eSIMs will silently break the SMS codes your bank sends you.
And before any of that, the question nobody selling eSIMs wants to open with: whether you need one. For a large share of readers — anyone living in the EU or EEA who's travelling inside it — the honest answer is no, and we'll get that out of the way first.
Who this comparison is for
- Travellers about to buy their first eSIM who want to know what the four big names actually differ on, past the marketing
- Anyone working from the road — where hotspot limits and SMS 2FA matter far more than the headline price
- People who suspect they're being sold something they don't need. That suspicion is often correct, and the next section says so.
Plans and prices verified 13 August 2026
Key Takeaways
- If you live in the EU or EEA and you're travelling inside it, you almost certainly don't need a travel eSIM at all — Roam Like At Home already covers you
- "Unlimited" means a daily cap on three of the four providers: Airalo 3GB/day, Saily 5GB/day, Nomad about 2GB/day. Only Holafly has no daily volume ceiling
- Holafly is the one genuinely uncapped option, but it throttles at a threshold it refuses to publish, and it caps your hotspot at 1GB/day
- Almost every travel eSIM is data-only, which quietly breaks SMS-based 2FA for banking and local apps — the most common real-world failure in the category
- Saily sells a real US number for $0.99/month; a dual-SIM setup fixes the same problem for free
- If you tether a laptop, hotspot limits decide your provider before price does — Saily and Nomad are uncapped
- eSIM-capable and carrier-unlocked are different things, and mainland-China iPhones have no eSIM hardware at all
Every price on this page is a dated anchor, not a quote
First: do you even need one?
A travel eSIM is a good product for a specific trip shape — short, in a country your home plan doesn't cover, with moderate data use. Outside that shape it's either unnecessary or actively worse value than the alternatives, and the pages ranking above this one have no incentive to tell you which case you're in.
If you live in the EU or EEA, stop here
Since 15 June 2017, the EU's "Roam Like At Home" rules have removed roaming surcharges across all 27 EU member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. Your domestic allowance travels with you, subject to a fair-use policy under Regulation (EU) 2022/612. For an EU or EEA resident travelling inside the EU or EEA, a travel eSIM is largely pointless — you'd be paying for data you already have.
The exceptions worth knowing: fair-use policies can bite if you're effectively living abroad rather than travelling, and post-Brexit UK travellers no longer benefit, since UK-to-EU roaming charges have largely returned.
Which of these is you?
Don't buy one
Roam Like At Home means your home plan already works across all 27 EU states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway at no surcharge. A travel eSIM buys you nothing except a second bill.
Save your money
The break-even, in four lines
| Your trip | What to buy |
|---|---|
| Under ~2 weeks, light to moderate data | Travel eSIM |
| Over ~3 weeks, heavy data, or you need a local number | Local SIM |
| EU/EEA resident travelling inside the EU/EEA | Your home SIM, free |
| Very short trip where SMS 2FA matters and the phone can't dual-SIM | Home carrier day pass |
If you land on "Wi-Fi is enough", the companion piece on staying connected abroad covers free Wi-Fi apps, country-by-country Wi-Fi quality and in-flight options in detail. Just treat public networks with the caution they deserve — our guide to working securely on public Wi-Fi explains why café networks are the weakest link in a travel setup.
Still here? Then a travel eSIM probably does make sense for your trip, and the rest of this page is about picking the right one.
The four providers, and who actually owns them
Airalo, Holafly, Saily and Nomad account for most of the travel eSIM market and nearly all of the search results. They're marketed as four independent choices, but two of them are limbs of much larger companies — which is worth knowing before you decide whose privacy promises to believe.
Airalo
Owned by AirGSM Pte. Ltd.
Delaware-registered, operating out of Singapore. Founded 2019. Roughly $285M raised in total, including a $220M Series C led by CVC in July 2025 that valued it above $1B — the category's first unicorn. 20M+ travellers, 200+ destinations.
- Best for
- Widest coverage, short trips, small plans, long-validity regional bundles
- "Unlimited"
- 3GB/day, then around 1Mbps
- Hotspot
- Allowed
- Phone number
- Select country plans only (some Thailand and Mexico bundles include voice/SMS)
- Weak point
- Refund friction when an eSIM doesn't connect; support quality slips at peak season
Saily
Owned by Nord Security
The Lithuanian company behind NordVPN, NordPass and NordLayer. Launched in 2024 under CEO Vykintas Maknickas. 200+ destinations. Bundles Nord's ad blocking, web protection and virtual location alongside the data plan.
- Best for
- Tethering a laptop, and anyone who needs SMS 2FA to keep working
- "Unlimited"
- 5GB/day, then around 1Mbps — the most generous daily cap of the metered providers
- Hotspot
- Uncapped
- Phone number
- Yes — a real US (+1) number add-on at $0.99/month, with inbound and outbound calls and SMS
- Weak point
- Costs more per GB than Nomad; the app is reportedly blocked in Turkey, so install it before you land
Holafly
Owned by Holafly (independent, Spanish)
Founded in Murcia in 2017 by Pedro Máiquez and Yingyan (Lidia) Hu, went through the Lanzadera accelerator in 2019, now run out of Madrid and Dublin. $500M+ accumulated revenue, roughly $200M in 2024, 15M+ eSIMs sold across 200 destinations.
- Best for
- Heavy single-phone use in one country over 15–30 days
- "Unlimited"
- No daily volume cap at all — but an unpublished operator fair-use throttle applies
- Hotspot
- Capped — current pages say 1GB/day (some legacy pages still say 500MB/day)
- Phone number
- Since November 2025, a number with inbound SMS and VoIP is bundled on USA, UK and Canada unlimited plans
- Weak point
- Very heavy affiliate-marketing footprint, a visible trail of complaints about eSIMs that never connect and slow refunds, and the highest price on short trips
Nomad
Owned by LotusFlare, Inc.
A US business line of LotusFlare (Santa Clara, California, founded 2014) — a telecom-software firm whose enterprise customers include Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile and Singtel. Nomad itself launched in 2020 across 170–200+ destinations.
- Best for
- The lowest price per GB on fixed data, and long-validity plans up to 365 days
- "Unlimited"
- About 2GB/day (higher in the USA), then 512kbps
- Hotspot
- Uncapped
- Phone number
- Data-only — no number, no SMS, no voice
- Weak point
- Thinner support presence than Airalo, and no phone-number option at any price
All four are MVNOs — none of them owns a network
Every provider here is a reseller. They buy wholesale capacity from local carriers and package it: Airalo's Japan plans ride SoftBank and KDDI, Holafly's ride NTT Docomo, Nomad's Mexico plans use AT&T and Movistar. None of them owns spectrum, which has one practical consequence worth remembering — at busy times and places you can be deprioritised behind the host carrier's own subscribers.
It rarely matters for maps and messaging. It shows up at airports, stadiums and rush hour, and it's the usual explanation when your eSIM feels slower than the local SIM your friend bought at the arrivals hall.
Two of these are corporate side-projects
"Unlimited" — the most misreported claim in the category
Three of these four providers sell a plan labelled unlimited that has a hard daily volume cap written into the terms. That isn't a scandal — the caps are published and mostly reasonable — but it does mean the word tells you almost nothing, and comparing two "unlimited" plans on price alone compares two different products.
| Provider | Daily cap | After the cap | What that means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Airalo | 3GB/day | Around 1Mbps for the rest of the day | A hard daily ceiling. Enough for maps, messaging and a few videos. |
| Saily | 5GB/day | Around 1Mbps for the rest of the day | The highest published daily allowance of the capped providers. |
| Nomad | ~2GB/day (higher in the USA) | 512kbps for the rest of the day | The lowest cap and the harshest throttle — 512kbps struggles with video. |
| Holafly | No daily volume cap | Unpublished operator fair-use throttle | The only one with no stated daily ceiling. The catch is that nobody outside Holafly knows where the throttle starts. |
- Airalo: A hard daily ceiling. Enough for maps, messaging and a few videos. After the cap: Around 1Mbps for the rest of the day.
- Saily: The highest published daily allowance of the capped providers. After the cap: Around 1Mbps for the rest of the day.
- Nomad: The lowest cap and the harshest throttle — 512kbps struggles with video. After the cap: 512kbps for the rest of the day.
- Holafly: The only one with no stated daily ceiling. The catch is that nobody outside Holafly knows where the throttle starts. After the cap: Unpublished operator fair-use throttle.
Give Holafly its due first
Holafly is the one provider here whose unlimited plan has no daily volume ceiling. That is a genuine, meaningful difference, and it's the reason Holafly wins for a specific kind of traveller: one phone, one country, a couple of weeks, and no interest in counting gigabytes. If you'd otherwise spend the trip watching your data meter, that's worth real money.
The criticism isn't the claim. It's what sits behind it.
The threshold Holafly won't publish
Holafly's own FAQ says only that operators "may reduce speeds after reaching a high-speed limit", for "no more than one day". It does not state the number. There's no published threshold anywhere on the site, which makes it impossible to compare the plan against a rival with a stated cap — the entire point of a comparison.
Independent testers report throttling starting around 1-2GB a day in Europe and the US, and closer to 500MB-1GB a day in Asia and Latin America, dropping speeds to roughly 1-5Mbps. Some resellers cite figures nearer 3GB/day or 90GB/month. Treat all of those as third-party estimates — none is an official Holafly figure, and we're not presenting any of them as one.
The practical read
Hotspot and tethering — the buried dealbreaker
If you travel with a laptop or a tablet, this is the single most decisive line in the whole comparison, and it appears near the bottom of almost every page that ranks for these searches. Tethering limits are set separately from your plan's data allowance, which is how an "unlimited" plan can leave you unable to get a laptop online.
| Provider | Hotspot limit | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Saily | Uncapped | Tether freely — your only ceiling is the plan's own data allowance or its 5GB/day unlimited cap. |
| Nomad | Uncapped | Same story: hotspot data simply counts against the plan, with no separate tethering limit. |
| Airalo | Allowed | Tethering is permitted and counts against your plan, but on an unlimited plan the 3GB/day ceiling covers phone and laptop together. |
| Holafly | 1GB/day (some pages still say 500MB/day) | A separate, much smaller tethering budget sitting inside an "unlimited" plan. The monthly global Holafly Plans subscription is the exception — it advertises unlimited hotspot. |
- Saily: Tether freely — your only ceiling is the plan's own data allowance or its 5GB/day unlimited cap.
- Nomad: Same story: hotspot data simply counts against the plan, with no separate tethering limit.
- Airalo: Tethering is permitted and counts against your plan, but on an unlimited plan the 3GB/day ceiling covers phone and laptop together.
- Holafly: A separate, much smaller tethering budget sitting inside an "unlimited" plan. The monthly global Holafly Plans subscription is the exception — it advertises unlimited hotspot.
Holafly's 1GB/day hotspot cap sits inside an unlimited plan
This is the awkward one. Holafly's unlimited plans have no daily volume cap for the phone itself, but tethering is metered separately at 1GB per day on the current product pages. One video call from a laptop can eat most of that.
Worth flagging honestly: Holafly's own pages disagree with each other. Current pages say 1GB/day; some legacy pages still state 500MB/day. We couldn't reconcile the two, so treat 500MB/day as the worst case and check the specific plan page at checkout. The one clear exception is the monthly global "Holafly Plans" subscription, which advertises unlimited hotspot.
If you tether, this decides it
Hitting the hotspot cap on day two of your "unlimited" plan... via GIPHY
The phone number problem
This is the failure that actually ruins trips, and it's the one almost nobody writes about. Most travel eSIMs are data-only. No phone number, no SMS, no voice. That's fine for maps and WhatsApp — right up until your bank texts a one-time code to a number that no longer has service, and you're standing in a hotel lobby unable to approve a payment.
What data-only actually breaks
- Banking apps and card verification. 3-D Secure confirmations, transfer approvals and login codes all still arrive by SMS at most banks.
- Ride-hailing and delivery signups. Uber, Bolt, Grab and their local equivalents verify by SMS, and some re-verify when they see a new country.
- Account recovery. If something locks you out mid-trip, an SMS-only recovery path becomes an unreachable one.
| Provider | Number? | What you get | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saily | Yes | Real US (+1) number, $0.99/month | Inbound and outbound calls and SMS, including 2FA codes. Inbound SMS is unlimited and free. Launched June 2026 — the only clean, cheap fix in the category. |
| Holafly | Partial | Bundled on some unlimited plans | Since November 2025, USA, UK and Canada unlimited plans include a number with inbound SMS and VoIP calling. Nothing on other destinations. |
| Airalo | Partial | Select country plans only | A handful of country bundles include voice and SMS — some Thailand and Mexico plans, for instance. Most of the catalogue is data-only. |
| Nomad | No | Data-only | No number, no SMS, no voice on any plan. If SMS 2FA matters to you, Nomad has to be paired with a dual-SIM setup. |
- Saily — Real US (+1) number, $0.99/month. Inbound and outbound calls and SMS, including 2FA codes. Inbound SMS is unlimited and free. Launched June 2026 — the only clean, cheap fix in the category.
- Holafly — Bundled on some unlimited plans. Since November 2025, USA, UK and Canada unlimited plans include a number with inbound SMS and VoIP calling. Nothing on other destinations.
- Airalo — Select country plans only. A handful of country bundles include voice and SMS — some Thailand and Mexico plans, for instance. Most of the catalogue is data-only.
- Nomad — Data-only. No number, no SMS, no voice on any plan. If SMS 2FA matters to you, Nomad has to be paired with a dual-SIM setup.
The cleanest paid fix: Saily's $0.99 US number
The free fix: dual-SIM, done properly
If your phone supports two lines at once — iPhones from the XS (2018) onward, and most Android flagships — you don't have to buy anything. Run your home SIM and the travel eSIM together, with each doing the job it's good at. Four steps, and the third one is the one that saves you money.
- 1
Keep your home SIM active
Don't remove it and don't suspend the line. It's the thing that receives your bank's SMS codes and your own number's calls.
- 2
Set the travel eSIM as your data line
On iOS: Settings → Cellular → Cellular Data → pick the eSIM. On Android it's usually Settings → Network & internet → SIMs → Mobile data. All of your browsing then rides the cheap plan.
- 3
Turn data roaming OFF on the home SIM
This is the step people skip, and it's the one that generates horror-story bills. Voice and SMS still work; only data is blocked. Do it before you land.
- 4
Turn data roaming ON for the travel eSIM
Counterintuitive but required — a travel eSIM is technically roaming, so it needs the setting enabled to connect at all.
The fix that outlasts the trip
Losing SMS is only half the story, too. Plenty of apps stop working the moment your IP address moves abroad, regardless of which eSIM you're on — we catalogued 73 apps that break when US travellers leave home , and a travel eSIM will not fix a single one of them.
Pricing — anchors, not a table to trust
Here's the awkward truth about every eSIM price table on the internet, this one included: it starts decaying the day it's published. Providers reprice constantly, run region-specific promotions, and layer discount codes on top. When we checked in August 2026, several of the highest-ranking comparison articles were still quoting Airalo's Japan unlimited price from before its early-2026 increase.
So treat what follows as a sense of scale — enough to know whether you're looking at $4 or $40 — and nothing more.
All prices below checked 13 August 2026
These are illustrative anchors in USD, verified on a single day. They will drift, and some will already be wrong by the time you read this. Verify at checkout before you buy — and check the plan page itself for the specific hotspot and daily-cap terms, which vary by destination even within one provider.
For live pricing across all four providers at once, esimdb.com is a better source than any article. We'd rather send you somewhere accurate than keep you on a page with a stale number on it.
Illustrative prices by destination
USD, checked 13 August 2026
| Provider | Sample plans |
|---|---|
| Saily | 1GB/7d $3.99 · 5GB/30d $13.99 · 10GB/30d $22.99 · unlimited 7d $28.99, 30d ~$71.99 |
| Nomad | 1GB/7d $5 · 5GB/30d $12 · 10GB/30d $20 · unlimited 7d $23, 10d $32 |
| Holafly | unlimited 5d $18.50 · 7d $25.50 · 10d $34.90 · 15d $46.90 · 30d $68.90 |
| Airalo | fixed data from $4.00; unlimited tiers available |
Rules of thumb that outlive the numbers
The relative positions move far more slowly than the absolute prices. These have held steady through several rounds of repricing:
Around 1GB
Airalo, Nomad and Saily all land near $4
Around 5GB
Nomad or Saily
Around 10GB
Nomad, usually the cheapest
Heavy single-phone use
Holafly at 30 days — but price a large fixed plan first (a 20GB Nomad plan often wins on total cost)
One thing worth checking yourself
Device compatibility and activation gotchas
This is where the money actually gets wasted. Refunds on an eSIM bought for an incompatible phone are notoriously hard to get across the whole category, so the five minutes you spend checking before you pay are the highest-value five minutes on this page.
eSIM-capable does not mean unlocked
These are two separate things and they trip up more buyers than anything else. A carrier-locked phone — common on US Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile contracts — will reject a foreign eSIM even though the hardware supports it. Ask your carrier to unlock it before you travel, not after.
Mainland-China iPhones have no eSIM hardware at all
Models with a /CH/A designation ship with a dual physical SIM tray instead of an eSIM chip. There is no software workaround. Some Hong Kong variants omit eSIM too. If you bought your iPhone in mainland China, no travel eSIM will work on it.
US iPhone 14 and newer have no SIM tray
The reverse problem: these are eSIM-only, so a local physical SIM bought abroad isn't an option. A travel eSIM or an eSIM from a local carrier is your only route.
Japanese phones bought before October 2021 may be locked
Carrier locking was standard in Japan until the rules changed. Worth checking if you're travelling on a hand-me-down or second-hand handset from that era.
QR codes are usually single-use
Delete the eSIM profile by accident and you often have to pay for a reissue — the original QR code won't scan a second time. Screenshot it, but treat the installed profile as the thing you must not delete.
Enable data roaming — yes, really
The KYC advantage nobody mentions
Here's a genuine argument for travel eSIMs that almost never appears in comparisons, probably because it's a legal detail rather than a feature anyone can put on a pricing page: in a lot of countries, buying a local SIM means handing over your passport.
| Country | What's required |
|---|---|
| India | Mandatory TRAI KYC — passport, visa, photo and often a local address for a tourist SIM. |
| Thailand | Passport registration required at point of sale. |
| Indonesia | SIM registration tied to passport details. |
| Vietnam | Passport required, and unregistered numbers get cut off. |
| UAE | Emirates ID or passport registration, sometimes with biometrics. |
| Saudi Arabia | Identity registration required for prepaid lines. |
Travel eSIMs generally sidestep all of it
It doesn't reverse that advice for long stays — three weeks of heavy data on a local plan will still cost less than any eSIM — but it does change the calculation for a one or two-week trip to a country where getting a SIM means an hour of paperwork you'd rather spend elsewhere.
Which one, for which traveller
No hedging. Find your row.
| If you're… | Buy | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Most people, short trips | Airalo Widest coverage, dependable, and the best selection of small plans. | Widest coverage, dependable, and the best selection of small plans. |
| Lowest cost on fixed data (5–10GB) | Nomad Consistently the best price per GB, with long-validity plans nobody else matches. | Consistently the best price per GB, with long-validity plans nobody else matches. |
| Tethering a laptop | Saily or Nomad Uncapped hotspot. Holafly caps tethering at 1GB/day — that single line decides it. | Uncapped hotspot. Holafly caps tethering at 1GB/day — that single line decides it. |
| You need SMS 2FA to keep working | Saily A real US number for $0.99/month is the only clean solution anyone sells. | A real US number for $0.99/month is the only clean solution anyone sells. |
| Heavy single-phone use, one country, 15–30 days | Holafly The only genuinely uncapped daily data — if you accept an unquantified throttle and won't tether much. | The only genuinely uncapped daily data — if you accept an unquantified throttle and won't tether much. |
| EU resident travelling inside the EU/EEA | None — use your home SIM Roam Like At Home means it already works at no extra cost. Don't buy anything. | Roam Like At Home means it already works at no extra cost. Don't buy anything. |
| Staying 3+ weeks with heavy data | A local SIM Far cheaper over that length of stay, and you get a real local number. | Far cheaper over that length of stay, and you get a real local number. |
If you only remember three things
- Check whether you need one at all. EU and EEA residents travelling inside the EU/EEA already have this covered, and long stays belong on a local SIM.
- Work out your SMS plan before you fly. Data-only is the default, and losing 2FA abroad is worse than losing a few gigabytes. Dual-SIM, an authenticator app, or Saily's $0.99 number — pick one.
- If you tether, buy on hotspot limits, not price. An unlimited plan with a 1GB/day tethering cap isn't an unlimited plan for anyone carrying a laptop.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do travel eSIMs give you a phone number?
Is Holafly's unlimited data really unlimited?
Which travel eSIM is cheapest?
Do I need a travel eSIM in Europe?
Can I use a hotspot with a travel eSIM?
Will a travel eSIM work on my phone?
Is a travel eSIM better than a local SIM card?
Do travel eSIMs require ID registration?
Is Saily owned by NordVPN?
Can I keep my own number while using a travel eSIM?
Does unused eSIM data roll over?
Can I get a refund if the eSIM doesn't work?
Why is my eSIM slower than a local SIM?
Should I install the eSIM before I fly?
Final thoughts
The travel eSIM market is not short of good products. What it's short of is honest comparison — the pages that rank for these searches are mostly written by people paid per sale, which is why "unlimited" goes unexamined, hotspot caps live in a footnote, and the fact that half of Europe doesn't need to buy anything never comes up at all.
If you take one habit away, make it this: buy on the constraint that will actually bite you. For most travellers that's the SMS codes, not the price per gigabyte. For anyone working from the road it's the hotspot cap. The $3 difference between providers at 5GB is noise next to being locked out of your bank in a country where you don't speak the language.
Prices and plan terms on this page were verified 13 August 2026 and are illustrative only — check esimdb.com or the provider's own checkout for what you'll actually pay today.
