Egypt eSIM
Data for Egypt on Vodafone and Orange, from $7.89. It never expires, tethering is included, and you install Orbislo once rather than once per trip.
- Networks
- Vodafone and Orange
- Real speed
- 29 Mbps median, 6 Mbps for the slowest tenth512 travellers, rolling 90 days
- 5G
- 4G only
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans for Egypt
| 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 | $3.78 | $18.89 | |
| 10 GB | Never expires | $3.59 | $35.89 | |
| 20 GB | Never expires | $2.84 | $56.89 |
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 29 Mbps actually means in Egypt
Travellers on Orbislo in Egypt see a median download of 29 Mbps, measured across 512 real sessions rather than a speed test we ran ourselves. That sits close to the Africa median of 30 Mbps, which makes Egypt an unremarkable place to be connected, in the good sense.
The tenth percentile is 6 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.
Maps, messaging, ride hailing and payment apps all work without complaint. Video calls connect but will drop resolution, and streaming is better set to standard definition than left on automatic. Tethering a laptop works for email and documents rather than for calls.
Which networks you will be on
Orbislo carries traffic in Egypt on Vodafone and Orange. 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 Egypt: 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 Egypt
A 100 MB plan for Egypt 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 Egypt it means the effective cost is nearer $0.00 a gigabyte than $0.00.
Because nothing expires, the cheapest way to buy for Egypt 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 Egypt
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 Egypt and it attaches to Vodafone. 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 Egypt
The measurements above are aggregated across Egypt, and a national median hides real variation. We publish separate figures for Cairo, Luxor, Hurghada and Aswan, 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 Egypt
A foreign buyer must appear in person at an operator branch with an original valid passport and a residency document, and the card is cut off one month after that residency period ends.
What is restricted in Egypt
- Handset registration by IMEI: A phone running an Egyptian SIM has to be registered with the customs authority within 90 days of that SIM going live or the handset loses service, and the rule does not touch a phone roaming on a foreign SIM.
- Phones on arrival: Since noon on 21 January 2026 Egypt no longer waives duty on the one phone a returning passenger brings in, but the waiver continues for tourists for 90 days. Customs desks no longer register personal phones, so a phone does not need registering at the airport.
- Paying phone duty: Where duty is due on a phone, it is paid by entering the phone's IMEI in the official Telephony app and paying by card, e-wallet or cash at an approved collection outlet. A phone that was blocked works again as soon as payment goes through.
- Line limit: A foreigner may register at most five voice lines and five data lines on one passport with each mobile operator.
- SIM replacement: Replacing a SIM needs the original passport, a signed request form at the operator's shop, and a match between the passport and the details already registered to that line. The swap is refused until the documents match.
- Social media: The UK government warns that foreigners who post comments critical of the government on social media risk detention, and that some travellers have been arrested and imprisoned for sharing content of a sexual nature on social media, especially about acts considered illegal in Egypt.
Worth knowing about Egypt
- Egypt charges a foreign visitor nothing for a handset used on a foreign SIM, and grants a 90 day exemption on each visit when the visitor uses an Egyptian tourist SIM instead.
- For a prepaid line Vodafone accepts a valid passport with a valid residency, a residency exemption or an e-visa, so a visitor who entered on an e-visa can register a line without a residence permit.
- Emergency numbers are 122 for the police, 123 for an ambulance and 180 for the fire service.
- Crimes against visitors are reported to the tourist police on 126, and a report should be made before leaving Egypt, because prosecution becomes difficult once the victim has gone home.
How Egypt compares across Africa
- Speed rank
- 13 of 24 destinations we have measured in Africa
- Regional median
- 29.5 Mbps
- Consistency
- The slowest tenth still reaches 21 percent of the median
- Upstream networks
- 2, Vodafone, Orange
- 5G
- 4G only
- Next fastest nearby
- Ivory Coast, 30 Mbps
- Next slowest nearby
- Namibia, 29 Mbps
- Cities with their own page
- 4: Cairo, Luxor, Hurghada, Aswan
- tenth percentile
- 6 Mbps
- Behind these figures
- 512 travellers, rolling 90 days
