Yes — and an ageing XS Max still installs travel eSIMs fine

The answer

Yes. The iPhone XS Max supports eSIM, and has since it launched in 2018 alongside the XS and the XR — the three handsets that introduced eSIM to the iPhone. It also has a nano-SIM tray, so it can hold a physical SIM and an eSIM at the same time.

An old phone, an unchanged chip

eSIM hardware does not degrade the way a battery does. A profile that installs on a new iPhone installs on an XS Max the same way, because the mechanism is the same: the provider issues a profile, the phone downloads it over the internet and writes it to the chip.

So if you are keeping this handset going — and a lot of people are — the eSIM is not the part that will let you down. What does change with age is everything around it: the battery, the iOS version and where the menus sit, and the accumulated debris of previous trips.

Clear out the profiles you are not using

This is the failure specific to a phone that has been travelling for years.

Every trip leaves a plan behind. A Thailand data plan from three years ago, a Spanish one from a work trip, two you installed and never activated. They sit there. Eventually a new install is refused, and the message rarely explains why in plain terms.

The fix is housekeeping. Go through your mobile plans, work out which ones are dead, and remove them. Two cautions:

• Removing an eSIM is usually permanent. You generally cannot reinstall from the same QR code, since most are single-use. Only delete plans you have genuinely finished with.
• Do not delete the one carrying your home number if your carrier issued it as an eSIM rather than a physical SIM. Getting that reissued from abroad is a bad afternoon.

We are not going to state how many profiles this handset can hold. That figure has moved across iOS versions, and a stale number would send you looking for a problem you don't have. Look at what is on the phone, and clear what you don't need.

The tray is your fallback, and that is worth something

The XS Max has a SIM tray. On a trip, that is a second route to being connected, and it costs you nothing to keep in reserve.

If a travel eSIM fails to activate, or the provider turns out to have no usable coverage where you actually are, you can walk into a shop and buy a local prepaid SIM. In many countries that SIM is cheaper per gigabyte than the eSIM was in the first place, because you are buying from the network instead of a reseller.

That fallback is not available on every modern iPhone. Every iPhone 14 and later sold in the US has no tray at all. If you are weighing up whether to keep the XS Max going or replace it, this is a genuine point in the old phone's favour, and one that rarely makes it into upgrade advice.

If an install fails

Work through these in order before blaming the phone:

1. Are you online? The profile downloads over the internet. Hotel Wi-Fi that has not been signed into does not count.
2. Is the handset carrier-unlocked? A locked XS Max rejects third-party profiles. Many were sold on contract; any such contract is long finished, so the carrier should release it on request.
3. Has the QR code already been used? Most are single-use. Scanning one twice does not work.
4. Is there space? Delete a plan you have finished with and try again.

If it still fails, dial *#06# and confirm an EID is listed. On an XS Max there will be — which tells you the problem is the plan, the lock or the connection, not the phone.

For other handsets, our compatibility checker has the full list, and the cheapest eSIM comparison covers which plans are actually worth buying.