How to get internet in Tunisia: eSIM, local SIM, roaming or free Wi-Fi?

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

To get internet in Tunisia, you have four options: a travel eSIM, a local tourist SIM or eSIM, your home operator's roaming, or free Wi-Fi. They differ enormously in price per gigabyte and in the steps needed before you are online. This guide compares all four with prices checked on 25 September 2026 and says which one fits which trip.

Which way to get internet in Tunisia suits you?

For most trips of up to two weeks, a travel eSIM installed before departure is the simplest; for long stays or heavy use, a local tourist SIM is the cheapest. The table sums up the four options, and each has its own section below.

Exchange rate used: the Central Bank of Tunisia's average interbank rate of 24 September 2026, 1 EUR = 3.3699 Tunisian dinars (DT, or TND). The same source gives 1 GBP = 3.9169 DT and 1 USD = 2.9586 DT. At that rate, 10 DT is about €2.97. The rates are published on the central bank's rates page.

We found no verified rental prices for pocket Wi-Fi routers in Tunisia, so that fifth option is not covered here.

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 Tunisia's three networks, Ooredoo Tunisie, Orange Tunisie and Tunisie Telecom, as a visitor. You need no shop and no Tunisian address, usually no passport either, and your own SIM stays in the phone for calls and bank SMS.

On 25 September 2026, a week of unlimited data cost between €24.50 (Yesim) and €37.90 (Holafly) among the well-known providers. A week with a fixed 10 GB cost from €15 at Ubigi and €17 at Airalo. Airalo's Tunisia plan runs on Ooredoo, Ubigi and Jetpac on Orange Tunisie, and Holafly on both.

eSIM Tunisie, the Tunisia specialist linked from this site, sells only unlimited plans on Orange Tunisie: €6.50 for 1 day, €18 for 3 days, €37 for 7 days and €99 for 30 days, priced and charged in euros. Its plans start at the first connection to a Tunisian network, not at purchase.

It is cheaper than Holafly at every length but never the cheapest, and its best rank is the single day: at €6.50 it is third of eleven brands. For 3 days it is sixth of eleven, 50 cents less than Airalo's €18.50 but €7.50 more than Yesim's €10.50; for 5 days it is eighth, at €29 against €15.79 at Nomad; for 7 days eighth again: €37, against €24.50 at Yesim and €32 at Airalo (Airalo and Nomad: 1 October 2026). Its allowance of 1 GB a day at full speed, then 512 kbps, is the lowest published among the brands compared, so heavy streamers should look elsewhere.

Our comparison of the best Tunisia eSIMs ranks them by trip length, the price-per-day guide covers the budget end, and the guide to unlimited Tunisia 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 before you buy, then follow our installation guide for Tunisia.

Option 2: a local tourist SIM or eSIM

A local line gives you Tunisian prices and, with Ooredoo, a Tunisian number with calls included. Two of the three operators have tourist offers we could read, and both sell them as a SIM card or as an eSIM.

Ooredoo Holiday SIM

Ooredoo's Holiday SIM page lists four packs. The page carries no date and warns that prices may change:

Each pack also includes international call minutes, from 10 minutes on the two smaller packs to 25 and 40 minutes on the larger ones, and 15 to 50 SMS. The 60 DT pack works out at about €0.45 per gigabyte, our own calculation.

The page states that the offer is also available as an eSIM. You pre-order online with your name, email, passport number, arrival date and arrival airport, and the form offers only Tunis-Carthage or Djerba-Zarzis. That makes it a practical choice if you land at one of those two airports, less so at Enfidha-Hammamet or Monastir.

Orange Tunisie tourist packs

Orange Tunisie's tourist page lists three data packs, each valid 30 days, sold as a SIM or an eSIM with "fast activation". The SIM card costs 2 DT on top:

The largest pack comes to about €0.32 per gigabyte including the SIM, again our calculation. The points of sale listed are Tunis-Carthage airport and border crossings with Algeria and Libya, including Melloula, Babouch near Tabarka, Aïn Draham and Ras Jedir, which suggests the page was written mainly for visitors arriving by road. The page carries no date.

Orange Tunisie also sells eSIMs to ordinary customers: its eSIM page says you activate it by scanning a QR code obtained in a shop. On 1 October 2026 the same page still said the eSIM was free with any new subscription until 30 September, without stating the year, so that offer may have ended.

Tunisie Telecom

Tunisie Telecom used to advertise a tourist SIM: an archived copy of its page dated 14 August 2024 describes a 10 DT offer for non-residents with 2.1 GB valid 30 days. The Internet Archive recorded the same address as a 404 error on 24 October 2025, and the official site could not be reached from our servers on 1 October 2026, so we cannot confirm that the offer still exists or give a current price. The figures that circulate online come from press articles that appear to date from around 2014 and should not be taken as current.

Do not confuse with Orange Travel

Orange Travel is a travel eSIM sold by Orange in France, not a Tunisian line. Its Tunisia page, read on 25 September 2026, offered 20 GB for 30 days at a promotional €19.99, 100 GB for 30 days at a promotional €37.99 (about €0.38 per GB, less than Ooredoo's largest pack) and 5 days of unlimited data at €25.99, and said it switches between Orange, Ooredoo and Tunisie Telecom. The page gives no end date for the promotions. It is bought online and installed at home like any other travel eSIM, with no counter in Tunisia, but esimdb flags an online identity check (eKYC) on all its Tunisia plans.

Do you need a passport for a Tunisian SIM?

Yes: Ooredoo's pre-order form makes the passport number a required field. Orange Tunisie's tourist page does not state its identity requirements. The eSIM seller Gigago, which updated its Tunis airport guide in September 2026, says the counters at Tunis-Carthage ask for the original passport and accept neither a national identity card nor a photocopy.

According to the same Gigago guide, the Orange and Ooredoo counters at Tunis-Carthage open from 7:00 to 22:00 and Tunisie Telecom's from 8:00 to 18:00. They stand in the arrivals hall, near baggage belt 2, after passport control. Gigago sells eSIMs itself, so treat its guide as a useful but commercial source.

Whether the other airports have operator counters is not confirmed. Neither Enfidha-Hammamet's nor Monastir's services page lists a telecom shop. At Djerba-Zarzis, Ooredoo's pre-order pickup is the one confirmed option.

A travel eSIM avoids this step entirely, because the provider sells you a visitor profile on a foreign line. Our comparison of eSIM and physical SIM explains what else changes.

Option 3: your own operator's roaming

Tunisia is not part of the EU "roam like at home" zone, so your domestic allowance does not follow you automatically. Prices depend entirely on your operator, and the gap is enormous. These are the figures published on the operators' own pages on 25 September 2026:

Free says its Free Max plan includes unlimited 5G or 4G internet in more than 140 destinations, Tunisia among them. Whether calls and SMS from Tunisia are included is contradicted between sources, so check Free's price brochure before you call home.

Orange France's Pass Voyage lists Tunisia with five options: unlimited data for 3 days at €9.99; unlimited data, 30 minutes and 50 SMS for 10 days at €29.99; 120 GB, 2 hours and 100 SMS for 31 days at €39.99; 200 GB for 31 days at €49.99; and a calls-only pass of 2 hours and 50 SMS for 31 days at €29.99.

Without a pass, roaming is expensive. The comparison site myroami, in March 2026, put out-of-bundle data in Tunisia at about €9.70 per MB at Free, €10.00 at Bouygues, €13.20 at SFR and RED, and €13.31 at Orange and Sosh; we did not confirm those figures on the operators' pages. Vodafone UK lists Tunisia among its additional roaming destinations but shows the price only through its Roaming Charge Checker.

Two readings follow. If you are with Free on Free Max, or can buy a short Orange pass, roaming may be the simplest option you have. If your operator bills per megabyte, a single evening with data roaming switched on can cost more than a month of Tunisian internet. Our guide to roaming charges to check before travelling lists the settings to change before you board.

Option 4: free Wi-Fi

• Tunis-Carthage and Djerba-Zarzis airports: the airport authority OACA offers free Wi-Fi under the network name OACA_AEROPORT_WIFI_FREE.
• Smaller OACA airports: on 7 May 2025, OACA extended free Wi-Fi to Sfax, Tozeur-Nefta, Gafsa, Tabarka-Aïn Draham and Kébili-Matmata, according to Managers.
• Enfidha-Hammamet airport: its operator TAV advertises "TAV free WiFi available throughout the terminal" on its services page, without a time limit or sign-up details. Monastir airport, also run by TAV, advertises the same free Wi-Fi throughout the terminal on its services page.
• Hotels and cafés: most hotels advertise Wi-Fi, but no source publishes hotel Wi-Fi speeds for Tunisia. It usually runs on fixed broadband, which Ookla measured at a median of 22.54 Mbps in August 2026, less than half the mobile median.

Airport Wi-Fi is fine for a message on landing, but do not rely on it to download an eSIM profile: session limits at each airport are not published. Install your eSIM at home instead.

Do WhatsApp and FaceTime calls work in Tunisia?

Yes: no restriction on internet calls is reported in Tunisia. Freedom House's Freedom on the Net 2025 report, which covers June 2024 to May 2025, answers "No" to networks restricted, social media blocked and websites blocked. It rates Tunisia 59 out of 100, "partly free".

The only disruption to calling apps recorded in Freedom House's 2024 report is a short one: Zoom and Microsoft Teams were blocked briefly on 30 March 2022, during an online session of parliament. We found no source reporting a block of WhatsApp or FaceTime calls in Tunisia.

Call quality therefore depends on the signal, not on a rule. Voice calls use little data; video calls use far more, which is where the daily cap of an "unlimited" plan matters.

How good is mobile internet in Tunisia?

Good enough for everything a traveller does, with thinner coverage in the desert. Ookla's Speedtest Global Index for August 2026 puts Tunisia's median mobile download at 50.79 Mbps, with 13.07 Mbps upload and 21 ms latency, 80th in the world.

Opensignal's September 2026 report, covering April to June 2026, names Ooredoo the best network, with the fastest average download (28.0 Mbps against 23.3 Mbps for Tunisie Telecom and 20.1 Mbps for Orange) and the best coverage score (8.0 out of 10, against 7.8 and 6.9). The nPerf barometer for 2025 ranks Tunisie Telecom and Orange joint first on points, so the order depends on the method.

The three operators launched 5G in February 2025, but coverage is still thin: Opensignal's 5G coverage scores were between 0.7 and 1.2 out of 10. In practice, 5G is mostly found in the larger cities, with 4G elsewhere; eSIM Tunisie states that its plans run on 4G.

In the south, Holafly warns that coverage "may be weaker, less stable, or unavailable" in the Sahara, on the Chott el-Djerid, in Jebil National Park and on desert roads near Tataouine. Download offline maps before a desert excursion. Our Djerba guide goes through the network measurements in detail.

What does each option cost for a typical week?

From about €8 to €37 for a week of mobile data, depending on the route you choose. The comparison below uses prices seen on 25 September 2026 and the central bank's exchange rate:

The local packs are valid 30 days, so the week uses only part of them. The eSIM prices are for plans that cover 7 days. Local lines win on price; travel eSIMs win on convenience, because you land online without a counter or a passport check.

So which should you choose?

• A few days to two weeks: a travel eSIM, installed at home. You land online, keep your own number and skip the counter.
• A month, heavy use, or you need a Tunisian number: Ooredoo's Holiday SIM or an Orange Tunisie tourist pack, with your passport.
• Your plan includes Tunisia, or you are with Free Max: check the terms, it may be the simplest option.
• Everyone: treat airport and hotel Wi-Fi as a backup, not as your connection.

Whatever you choose, start with the one check that decides whether an eSIM is possible: 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. iPhone owners can also check the iPhone 16 page.