Getting online in Egypt: travel eSIM, tourist SIM, roaming or Wi-Fi?

Part of our Egypt eSIM guide: all articles and key facts →

To get internet in Egypt, you have four realistic options: a travel eSIM, a local tourist SIM, your home operator's roaming, or free Wi-Fi. They differ widely in price, paperwork and reliability. This guide compares them with prices checked on 25 September 2026, says where the published figures conflict, and tells you which option fits which trip.

Which way to get internet in Egypt suits you?

For most trips of up to two weeks, a travel eSIM installed at home is the simplest; for long stays, a local SIM is usually cheaper per GB. The table sums up the options, and each has its own section below.

Exchange rate used: €1 = 58.81 Egyptian pounds (EGP) on 25 September 2026, a market rate published by open.er-api.com. At that rate, 100 EGP is about €1.70 and 1,000 EGP about €17.

Option 1: a travel eSIM

A travel eSIM is a digital SIM that you buy online and install before you fly. It connects to one or more of Egypt's networks as a visitor: Vodafone Egypt, Orange Egypt or e& Egypt. None of the well-known providers we checked uses the fourth network, WE, run by Telecom Egypt.

You need no shop, no passport and no Egyptian address, and your own SIM stays in the phone for calls and bank SMS. The travel eSIM is data-only: no Egyptian number, no calls, no SMS.

Across the whole market, the median price of an Egypt-only plan with at least 1 GB a day at full speed was €24.77 for 7 days on 1 October 2026, promotional prices included, based on the listings of the comparison site esimdb. Fixed-data plans can cost far less if you use little: Yesim sold 10 GB valid 30 days for €15.

Where eSIM Égypte fits

eSIM Égypte, a specialist in Egypt eSIMs, charged €6.50 for 1 day, €18 for 3 days, €26 for 5 days, €33 for 7 days, €36 for 10 days, €46 for 15 days and €86 for 30 days. It is cheaper than Holafly at every one of these lengths, and it sells a 1-day plan, which Airalo, Nomad, aloSIM and Ubigi do not.

It names three networks, Vodafone, Orange and e&, where most competitors name one or two, which gives the phone a fallback when one signal is weak. Hotspot sharing is allowed on every plan, and the validity starts at the first connection to an Egyptian network rather than at purchase.

Its limits are in the numbers: about 1 GB a day at full speed is the smallest allowance among the named brands that publish one, its prices sit above the market median at every length, and it sells no top-up, so a longer stay means a new eSIM. It suits maps, messages and social media on a short or medium trip, not heavy streaming. Our comparison of the best Egypt eSIMs ranks the providers by trip length, the price-per-day guide covers the budget end, and our guide to unlimited Egypt eSIMs lists the real daily caps.

The one condition: your phone must support eSIM and must not be locked to your operator. Check the list of compatible phones, then follow our installation guide.

Option 2: a local tourist SIM

A local SIM gives you Egyptian prices and an Egyptian number. The catch in 2026 is that only e& and WE publish official prices for visitors; at Vodafone and Orange you often find out the price at the counter.

• Vodafone Egypt sells a Tourist Line, "eligible for tourists visiting Egypt only", at the Vodafone airport store and in its shops. Its page gives the out-of-bundle rates, 0.19 EGP per local minute, per SMS and per MB, and the code *6060# for the balance, but not the price, volume or validity of the tourist bundle itself.
• Orange Egypt's former holiday-line address now leads to a "Travel to Egypt" page with no tourist price.
• e& Egypt's "Traveling to Egypt" page lists four Traveler bundles, for tourists only: 200, 300, 450 and 600 EGP for 7, 12, 25 and 40 GB, with 100 to 400 local minutes, tax included. The page does not state their validity.
• WE's Mobile Egypt page offers two plans for tourists only, valid 30 days: 5,000 MB with 60 local and 20 international minutes for 100 EGP, and 20,000 MB with 120 and 60 minutes for 300 EGP, before tax. After the bundle, data continues at a reduced speed.

At 0.19 EGP per MB, Vodafone's out-of-bundle rate works out at 190 EGP, about €3.23, for 1,000 MB. That is a reason to buy a bundle rather than rely on credit.

The prices quoted online contradict each other

Two sources published tourist SIM prices in August 2026, and they cannot both be right:

At our exchange rate, Traveltomtom's Vodafone bundles cost about €9.49 to €16.78, while Holafly's e& figures would put 40 GB at about €10.20. The blogger Traveltomtom says it noted its prices in August 2026 and describes buying a SIM at Cairo airport; Holafly, itself an eSIM seller, says it cites the operators' own lists, some before tax. The gap may come from list prices versus airport prices. The official e& and WE pages, read on 1 October 2026, match Holafly's figures for those two operators (e& states no validity); for Vodafone and Orange, only Traveltomtom gives figures, and they are not official, so treat them as a range.

At Hurghada airport

A local guide, Hurghada Today, described the situation in January 2026: kiosks of the four operators in the arrivals hall after baggage claim, open around the clock depending on flights. It quoted $12 to $15 for 20 to 30 GB and $25 to $35 for 60 GB or more, often payable in euros or dollars.

It also warned that some bundles split the data, for example 10 GB for browsing and 10 GB for social media apps. Ask what the volume covers before you pay. We found no reliable source on the kiosks at Sharm el-Sheikh airport.

What do you need to buy a SIM card in Egypt?

Your passport, every time. All the sources we read agree that operators ask for a passport. The NTRA's rule for foreigners (page updated 19 November 2023) asks, at an operator's branch, for the original passport and a residency document, and ties the line's validity to the residency period; it does not mention tourist lines. Hurghada Today specifies the physical passport with the entry stamp, and Holafly reports that Vodafone may ask for a residency permit or an e-visa as well as the passport.

A local SIM also brings the phone customs rules into play. The NTRA, Egypt's telecom regulator, ended the customs exemption for phones carried by passengers at 12:00 on 21 January 2026, but kept it for tourists for a period of 90 days. Khaleej Times reported that a foreign phone with an Egyptian tourist SIM is exempt for 90 days per visit, and that visitors using a foreign SIM pay no fees.

For a holiday, the rule changes nothing. For a stay of more than three months with an Egyptian SIM, check the current rules before you travel, because no source we found says what happens after 90 days.

Option 3: your own operator's roaming

Egypt is outside the EU's "roam like at home" zone, so your domestic allowance does not follow you automatically. What you pay depends entirely on your operator. These are the offers we could confirm on the operators' own pages on 25 September 2026.

Orange France: Pass Voyage

Orange France's Pass Voyage includes Egypt among 75 destinations, for Orange and Sosh customers except Mobicarte:

For a short trip, the 3-day pass costs less than most 3-day travel eSIMs, and it keeps your French number for calls.

Free Mobile and the others

Free Mobile's Forfait Free 5G+ includes 35 GB a month of internet from Egypt, among other destinations; beyond that, the standard rate applies. Its Forfait Free Max lists Egypt among the destinations with unlimited internet, subject to reasonable use. For these customers, roaming may be the cheapest option of all.

Vodafone UK places Egypt in its Zone D, "73 additional worldwide destinations"; the daily price did not appear on the page we read. For Telekom in Germany and Movistar in Spain, the prices we found came only from third-party sites and did not agree, so check your own operator's price list before you switch on data roaming.

Option 4: free Wi-Fi

• Cairo airport: the "CAI Free WiFi" network asks you to register and sends a code by SMS, according to the Sleeping in Airports guide updated in January 2026. One traveller reports that a foreign number works if typed in international format, so keep your home line on.
• Hurghada airport: the same guide, updated in February 2026, reports free, unlimited Wi-Fi.
• Sharm el-Sheikh airport: the information we found was contradictory, so we cannot say.
• Hotels: most offer Wi-Fi, but quality varies. Ookla found that more than 45% of 22 five-star hotels it studied across the Middle East and North Africa delivered under 50 Mbps; the Rixos Sharm El Sheikh, the only Egyptian hotel in its results, reached a median of 93.70 Mbps.
• Nile cruise boats: travellers often describe the on-board Wi-Fi as slow. We found no measurement.

Free Wi-Fi is fine for a message on arrival, but it is not a plan for a trip that involves ride-hailing, maps and bookings away from the hotel.

Do WhatsApp and FaceTime calls work in Egypt?

Messages work; calls are uncertain, and no reliable 2026 source says they now work. Freedom House, in Freedom on the Net 2025, covering June 2024 to May 2025, reported that the NTRA had announced plans to lift a long-standing ban on internet calls such as WhatsApp or Viber calling, but that the ban had not been lifted by the end of that period, and several services remained inaccessible.

In December 2024, the Egyptian outlet WAYA Media reported that the NTRA was preparing to allow such services for the first time since their second ban in 2015. We found no official announcement since then, and websites contradict each other on whether calls go through on Vodafone, Orange or WE.

eSIM Égypte's own FAQ says WhatsApp voice and video calls have been "historically restricted in Egypt by local operators". The practical advice: expect text messages and voice notes to work, try calls, and keep your home number active so you can make an ordinary call if an internet call fails.

How good is mobile internet in Egypt?

Good enough for everyday travel use, with large differences between the four networks. Ookla's Speedtest Global Index put Egypt's median mobile download at 52.32 Mbps in August 2026, 78th in the world. Opensignal's background measurements, from November 2025 to January 2026, gave averages from 13.8 Mbps on Orange to 25.5 Mbps on WE.

Egypt launched 5G on 4 June 2025 with all four operators, but it is still thin: Vodafone users spent 9.6% of their time on 5G in Opensignal's February 2026 report, and Orange users 4.5% (the "Time on 5G" measure; a 5G signal was detected more often, 37.5% of the time for Vodafone users, under "5G Availability"). The operators have agreed a $3.5 billion deal for 410 MHz of extra spectrum, with 5G investment commitments of EGP 20 billion each for Vodafone and e& and EGP 15 billion for Orange, according to EnterpriseAM.

We found no published speeds by city, for Cairo, Luxor, Aswan or the Red Sea resorts. The NTRA runs monthly field tests across Cairo, Giza, Alexandria, the Delta, the Canal, the Red Sea and Upper Egypt, but reports by region rather than by town. Our Cairo guide sets out what is known, network by network.

So which should you choose?

• A stopover to two weeks: a travel eSIM installed at home. You land online, keep your own number and skip the passport check at a kiosk.
• A month or more, or you need an Egyptian number: a local tourist SIM from Vodafone, Orange, e& or WE, with your passport, bought at an operator's own store.
• Your tariff includes Egypt, or you are with Orange France or Free: check the roaming offer first; for a short trip it may be the cheapest option.
• Staying in one hotel all week: hotel Wi-Fi may be enough, with a short eSIM for the transfers and excursions.

Whatever you choose, start with the check that decides whether an eSIM is possible at all: the free eSIM Check app on Android reads your phone's real hardware capabilities in seconds, and our no-app method works on any phone.