Brazil eSIM
Data for Brazil on Vivo and Claro, from $7.89. It never expires, tethering is included, and refills land on the line you already have, with nothing new to install.
- Networks
- Vivo and Claro
- Typical speed
- 49 Mbps typical, 12 Mbps at busy times
- 5G
- yes, non standalone
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans for Brazil
| Data | Validity | Price per GB | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | Never expires | $7.89 | $7.89 | |
| 3 GB | Never expires | $4.96 | $14.89 | |
| 5 GBMost travellers | Never expires | $4.38 | $21.89 | |
| 10 GB | Never expires | $3.39 | $33.89 | |
| 20 GB | Never expires | $2.99 | $59.89 |
Every plan works the moment you land. Unused data returns to your wallet when the line closes, and customers get at least 100 MB of free rescue data a month even at zero balance.
What 49 Mbps actually means in Brazil
Typical download speed on Orbislo in Brazil: 49 Mbps. That puts Brazil well above the South America median of 34 Mbps.
The tenth percentile is 12 Mbps. That gap between the median and the floor is normal and it is where the frustration lives: the connection is quick most of the time and noticeably slow in the busiest few percent of moments, typically at transport hubs at peak hour.
That is enough for everything most travellers do: maps, messaging, video calls, streaming at high definition, and tethering a laptop for ordinary work. It is not enough to be casual about uploading a day of raw photographs.
Which networks you will be on
Orbislo carries traffic in Brazil on Vivo and Claro. 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 Brazil: yes, non standalone. Worth knowing that 5G on a travel profile is normal rather than special, and that the tenth percentile above is the number that will decide how the trip feels, not the generation label in the status bar.
What data costs in Brazil
A 100 MB plan for Brazil starts at $0.30, which is $0.00 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 Brazil it means the effective cost is nearer $0.00 a gigabyte than $0.00.
Because nothing expires, the cheapest way to buy for Brazil 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 Brazil
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 Brazil and it attaches to Vivo.
On landing there is one thing to check: 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 Brazil
The figures above cover Brazil as a whole, and a national figure hides real variation. We publish separate figures for Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Salvador and Florianopolis, 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 Brazil
Activating a new prepaid chip means entering a CPF tax number, a date of birth and a residential postcode, then photographing an original photo ID and taking a selfie. The operator does not switch the line on until that registration is complete and correct.
What is restricted in Brazil
- X (Twitter): On 30 August 2024 a Supreme Court justice ordered X suspended across Brazil, told Anatel to enforce the block, and set a daily fine of R$50,000 for any person or company using technological workarounds to keep using it.
- WhatsApp: Brazilian criminal courts have ordered WhatsApp suspended nationwide, including a 72 hour suspension issued in Lagarto, Sergipe, and another order from Duque de Caxias, Rio de Janeiro. Both times the president of the Supreme Court restored the service by injunction.
Worth knowing about Brazil
- Every device that transmits on radio frequencies, phones and tablets and hotspots alike, has to be homologated by Anatel or hold a certification Anatel accepts before it may be sold or used in Brazil, and the approval is shown by a seal or an Anatel code on the device or its box.
- Anatel tells buyers to check, before picking up a handset abroad, whether it is compatible with Brazilian networks and whether the seller's contract restricts use outside that seller's own network.
- Anatel runs a public IMEI lookup that shows whether a handset carries a registered impediment, and a phone with two SIM slots has an IMEI for each one, so both need checking.
- If the online activation steps fail or are left unfinished, the operator sends a reminder, and the line can still be activated in person at one of the operator's shops on showing a personal identity document.
- TIM registers a visitor's prepaid chip with a passport number, a Brazilian foreigner registration number (RNE) or a foreign identity card, plus the address where the visitor is staying. A foreign identity card is accepted only from visitors from Mercosur countries.
- Federal Law 10,703 of 2003 obliges every prepaid operator to keep an up to date register of its users with full name, full address and an identity document or CPF number, and to hand that record to a judge on request.
- The same law requires a prepaid user to report straight away a lost or stolen handset, a change of the handset's owner or any change in registration details. Failing to do so can bring a fine of up to R$50 and a block on the line.
- Prepaid credit must stay valid for at least 30 days, and its expiry has to be shown before purchase, including at electronic top up points. Every operator must also sell credit valid for 90 days and for 180 days at reasonable prices.
- While a prepaid contract is still running, a new top up revives any unused balance, even balance that has already expired, and all of it takes whichever validity is longer, the new credit's or the old.
- When prepaid credit runs out or expires, the operator may suspend the line 15 days after notifying the user. For the first 30 days of suspension the line still receives calls and texts and can still reach emergency services, and after 60 days the contract may be ended.
- Operators must give prepaid users a free, real time way to check their credit and its expiry date, and must warn them when credit is about to run out or expire, and when usage is nearing a plan's allowance.
- The main emergency numbers are 190 for the military police, 192 for the SAMU ambulance service and 193 for the fire brigade. From a mobile phone, 112 and 911 also reach the military police, and every call to a public emergency service is free.
- Brazil's national three digit codes also include 191 for the Federal Highway Police, 185 for Navy sea and river emergencies, 198 for the state highway police and 199 for civil defence.
- A Mercosur agreement in force for Brazil since 21 November 2025 requires operators in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay to charge their customers visiting Brazil their home prices for calls, messages and data, from an application date set by a joint technical committee.
- The same Mercosur agreement commits Brazil to minimise obstacles to technological alternatives to international roaming, so that visitors from the other member countries can use telecom services on the devices of their choice.
- Under the Brazil and Chile free trade agreement, in force since 25 January 2022, Chilean operators must bill their customers in Brazil at home prices for calls, texts and mobile data, under a roaming rule set to apply within one year of the agreement taking effect.
- A handset reported stolen or lost in Brazil can be barred from every Brazilian mobile network: its IMEI goes on the national impeded device register, CEMI, which is copied to all operators. The request needs the line number in use, the date and time of the loss and proof of identity.
How Brazil compares across South America
- Regional typical speed
- 33.5 Mbps
- Upstream networks
- 2, Vivo, Claro
- 5G
- Yes, non standalone
- Next fastest nearby
- Chile, 52 Mbps
- Next slowest nearby
- Uruguay, 48 Mbps
- Cities with their own page
- 4: Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Salvador, Florianopolis
