Afghanistan eSIM
Data for Afghanistan on Afghan Wireless, Roshan, MTN Afghanistan, Etisalat Afghanistan and Salaam, from $17.89. It never expires, tethering is included, and you install Orbislo once rather than once per trip.
- Networks
- Afghan Wireless, Roshan, MTN Afghanistan, Etisalat Afghanistan and Salaam
- Real speed
- 19 Mbps
- 5G
- 4G only
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans for Afghanistan
| Data | Validity | Price per GB | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | Never expires | $17.89 | $17.89 | |
| 3 GB | Never expires | $12.96 | $38.89 | |
| 5 GBMost travellers | Never expires | $11.78 | $58.89 |
Every plan works the moment you land. Unused data returns to your wallet when the plan ends, and there is 100 MB of free rescue data on your account even at zero balance.
What 19 Mbps actually means in Afghanistan
That is below the Asia median of 43.9 Mbps. It is 157th out of the 159 destinations we have measured, so plan around it rather than being surprised by it.
Expect maps, messaging and payments to work and expect anything video shaped to struggle. This is a destination where offline maps earn their download, and where a video call is worth scheduling around wifi rather than attempting from a moving vehicle.
Which networks you will be on
Orbislo carries traffic in Afghanistan on Afghan Wireless, Roshan, MTN Afghanistan, Etisalat Afghanistan and Salaam. Your phone is not tied to one of them. When the network you are attached to congests or drops, the profile moves you to the other, and it happens without a prompt and without you noticing anything except that the connection kept working.
This matters more than the headline speed. Almost every travel eSIM sold today resells a single upstream agreement per country, so when that one network has a bad hour you have a bad hour with it and your only option is to buy a second eSIM from somebody else. A profile with more than one network behind it can make a decision you never see.
5G in Afghanistan: 4G only. A well provisioned 4G cell comfortably outruns a congested 5G one, which is why the figure above is measured throughput rather than a network generation.
What data costs in Afghanistan
A 500 MB plan for Afghanistan starts at $2.60, which is $0.01 a gigabyte. That is the number to compare between providers, because a headline price attached to a different allowance tells you nothing.
The comparison most providers would rather you did not run is cost per gigabyte actually used. Independent surveys of travel data put the share of purchased data lost to expiry between 20 and 35 percent, because a plan that expires on day thirty deletes what you did not get through. Orbislo data has no expiry date, so the gigabyte you paid for is still there on the next trip. At the same headline price that is 25 to 40 percent more usable data, and in Afghanistan it means the effective cost is nearer $0.00 a gigabyte than $0.01.
Because nothing expires, the cheapest way to buy for Afghanistan is to buy slightly less than you think you need and top up if you run out. Topping up takes about ten seconds and does not involve installing anything. Buying too much is the expensive mistake everywhere else and merely a neutral one here.
Landing in Afghanistan
Install before you fly, on your home wifi. The profile downloads while you still have a connection you trust, then sits dormant until you land in Afghanistan and it attaches to Afghan Wireless. Median time from tapping install to having service across all Orbislo orders is 41 seconds.
On landing there is one thing to check and it is the thing that goes wrong about sixty percent of the time people tell us they have no service: data roaming has to be switched on for the Orbislo line. It is off by default on both iOS and Android, and it has nothing to do with roaming charges here, because the plan is prepaid and there is no bill to run up. Turn it on for the Orbislo line and leave it off for your home line, and your home number keeps working for calls and bank codes without costing anything.
Coverage across Afghanistan
The measurements above are aggregated across Afghanistan, and a national median hides real variation. We publish separate figures for Kabul, Herāt and Mazār-e Sharīf, because the difference between a capital and a coastal town is usually larger than the difference between two countries.
Outside the cities, coverage follows the same pattern it does everywhere: the main roads and the tourist corridors are well served, and it thins in the mountains and on the water. No travel eSIM changes that, because it is the same physical network the local population uses. What a multi network profile changes is which of the available towers you get to use.
Getting a local SIM in Afghanistan
Registering a SIM card in Afghanistan requires biometric verification and an identity document, usually a Tazkira, a passport or a driving licence. The duty sits on the Afghan operator issuing the line, so it applies when you buy a local SIM rather than when you roam on a travel eSIM bought abroad.
What is restricted in Afghanistan
- VoIP and messaging apps: A US Mission to Afghanistan security alert dated 30 September 2025 reported that the Taliban had suspended internet services across the country the previous day, blocking broadband and mobile internet, and that WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram were not working on mobile phones. The alert noted reports that satellite services such as Starlink still had some connectivity.
- Mobile data: Authorities set a one-week deadline for shutting down 3G and 4G mobile internet, leaving only 2G active, before phone and internet services went down nationwide from 29 September 2025. Any roaming eSIM depends on the same mobile networks, so an order of this kind removes data service regardless of which provider sold the plan.
- Fixed and fibre internet: Fibre-optic internet was cut in Balkh, Kunduz, Badakhshan, Baghlan and Takhar on an order attributed to the Taliban supreme leader, reported on 18 September 2025, with officials saying the aim was to prevent immorality. Mobile internet stayed up in those provinces, so hotel and cafe Wi-Fi is the part that disappears first.
- Satellite internet: Satellite terminals are treated as unlicensed equipment. On 29 April 2026 the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, working with security agencies, seized two Starlink dishes in Yakawlang district of Bamiyan and said they were operating without licences. Carrying a personal satellite terminal is therefore a seizure risk rather than a fallback.
Worth knowing about Afghanistan
- Importing telecommunications equipment requires clearance from the Ministry of Interior and the General Directorate of Intelligence before the Afghanistan Telecommunications Regulatory Authority will issue a licence, and customs release the equipment only after those approvals. ATRA now issues a licence for each individual device instead of one licence covering several devices of the same type, which matters if you carry a satellite phone or a VSAT terminal.
- The nationwide cut that began on 29 September 2025 ran for about 48 hours before services came back, and it followed the provincial fibre-optic shutdowns of that month. Plan for the possibility of no data at all rather than for slow data.
- In May 2026 internet providers in Kabul were summoned by the Afghanistan Telecom Regulatory Authority and told to disconnect residential fibre-optic services across the capital, which would end home and guesthouse Wi-Fi supplied over fibre.
- The September 2025 shutdown was staged: fibre links were cut from 16 September in several provinces, mobile 3G and 4G were given a one-week deadline, and telephone service went last because it rides on the same infrastructure.
- The Afghanistan Telecom Regulatory Authority banned the import of mobile phones that lack registration and an IMEI code, announced in February 2021, and said only handsets approved by ATRA may be imported. The rule is written against importers, not against a visitor bringing one handset.
- A Ministry of Communications and Information Technology notice of 19 March 2025 tells companies importing mobile phones to obtain an import licence from ATRA first, and describes a system that records the IMEI number of every device entering the country.
- Street sale of SIM cards has been stopped. ATRA reported in March 2024 that subscribers must now obtain a registered card directly from a telecom company office, and that 6.5 million of roughly 23 million distributed cards had been registered.
- ATRA said in October 2024 that cards previously registered against paper identity documents must be registered again using electronic ID cards, so a local line held by a resident can be suspended pending re-registration.
- By October 2024 the Ministry of Communications counted about 25 million SIM cards in use with 13.9 million meeting registration rules, and people who had already registered once were told to register again under the newer directives.
- The Taliban cabinet ordered telecommunications companies to stop distributing unregistered SIM cards, reported in April 2022, following an earlier instruction that operators collect biometric data from customers.
- A directive effective 16 June 2026 bars government employees, judges, police and military personnel from using smartphones, permitting only feature phones, and in some provinces it has been extended into hospitals, schools and universities. Expect resistance to phone use inside official buildings.
- Etisalat Afghanistan introduced the country's first eSIM in April 2021, and the profile is issued in person at a flagship store, which is where a local eSIM would have to be collected rather than downloaded before arrival.
How Afghanistan compares across Asia
- Speed rank
- 28 of 28 destinations we have measured in Asia
- Regional median
- 42.95 Mbps
- Upstream networks
- 5, Afghan Wireless, Roshan, MTN Afghanistan, Etisalat Afghanistan, Salaam
- 5G
- No, LTE only
- Next fastest nearby
- Nepal, 21 Mbps
- Cities with their own page
- 3: Kabul, Herāt, Mazār-e Sharīf
