How much is a SIM card? From $5 to $35, depending on where you land

How much is a SIM card abroad?

How much is a SIM card? On the country pages we've researched, a prepaid tourist SIM costs anywhere from about $5 to about $35, and the spread has more to do with what's bundled than with the card. A Philippine SIM is ₱40 on its own. Turkcell's tourist pack at Istanbul Airport is roughly $35 because it carries 20 GB, 200 minutes and 30 days.

So the useful question isn't the sticker. It's what you get, where you buy it, and whether you need a physical SIM at all.

Every figure below is taken from our own country guides, which record the date each was checked, mostly 13 to 18 August 2026. Some local prices are typical figures from our research rather than receipts, and the pages say which. We have not bought these SIMs ourselves.

SIM card prices by country

Two of those rows deserve a caveat. Our India figure hasn't been re-checked this month. Our Vietnam data also holds a separate typical airport figure of about $7, which doesn't agree with the kiosk quotes; the Vietnam page treats $7 as the floor and $16 as the ceiling, and so should you.

Starter pack or plan: which price are you being quoted?

This is where people get caught. A "SIM card price" can mean three different things.

The card alone. In the Philippines the SIM is ₱40 to ₱100 and useless without a data package, which costs ₱500 to ₱800 for 30 days. Quote the first number and you're out by a factor of ten.

A starter pack. Mexico's Telcel pack at about MXN 99 is the card plus a way onto the network. We don't record how much data comes in it, so ask at the till before assuming it covers your trip.

A plan that happens to come on a SIM. Iliad in Italy and Digi in Spain are monthly plans: €9.99 and around €5. Turkey's airport pack is a 30-day bundle with minutes. These look expensive next to ₱40 and are often the better buy.

Is the airport more expensive?

Usually, and sometimes by a lot. Spanish and Italian airport SIMs run two to three times the city price. In Turkey the gap between Istanbul Airport's roughly 1,300 TL and the 700–900 TL in city stores is, as our Turkey page puts it, about the price of a good dinner.

Not everywhere, though. Mexico charges about $8 at the airport against $6 in town, which hardly matters. The Philippines charges the same at the airport as in a mall, so there's no penalty for waiting until you've slept.

Where to buy a SIM card near you

We can't see where you are, but the pattern by country is consistent enough to plan around.

• Supermarkets and convenience stores work in some countries and not others. Oxxo sells Telcel SIMs all over Mexico. In Japan, 7-Eleven, FamilyMart and Lawson sell top-ups only, never a first SIM.
• Electronics chains are the easy in-town answer in Japan, where Bic Camera and Yodobashi have English-speaking staff in Tokyo.
• Big-box stores cover the USA: Walmart, Target, CVS, Walgreens and Best Buy all stock prepaid kits from T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon, and no ID is needed. Walmart tends to be cheapest on kits. We don't hold verified US shelf prices, so compare in the aisle.
• Mall kiosks and department stores win in Europe: Iliad in Italian shopping centres, El Corte Inglés and Carrefour in Spain.
• Airport counters are everywhere and almost always the dearest. Germany's three main airports all sell them, with passport, at around $15.

Bring your passport unless you're in Mexico or the US. Nearly everywhere else on our list registers the SIM to it.

How much is an eSIM instead?

Less than most physical SIMs, for short trips. The cheapest entry points on our cheapest eSIM page start at $2.90 for 1 GB over three days in the Philippines, $2.90 in Egypt, and $3.99 for 1 GB over seven days from Saily in many countries.

But the headline price is the wrong comparison. A 1 GB plan at $4 costs $4 per gigabyte, while the cheapest rate in our whole table is Nomad's 50 GB for $12 in Thailand, $0.24 a gigabyte, valid for ten days. The median country sits at $0.98.

Against the local options, the arithmetic swings both ways. In Thailand, $10 to $20 at the airport buys less than the eSIM ladder does. In India, a local bundle works out near 20 cents a gigabyte, against $2 to $3 for an eSIM, if you can face the paperwork. In Egypt, eSIM data is expensive, $2.42 to $5.50 per GB, and the $8 local SIM may beat it over a fortnight.

What we would pay

For a week or less, an eSIM bought before you fly, sized at 3 to 10 GB rather than 1 GB. For a month somewhere with a cheap local plan, such as Italy, Spain, Mexico or India, the local SIM bought in town, not at arrivals. And if you're heading to Costa Rica, we haven't researched its local SIMs yet, so we won't guess at a price; the eSIM figures there are on its page.