France eSIM
Data for France on Orange and SFR, from $5.89. It never expires, tethering is included, and you install Orbislo once rather than once per trip.
- Networks
- Orange and SFR
- Real speed
- 71 Mbps median, 19 Mbps for the slowest tenth2,510 travellers, rolling 90 days
- 5G
- yes, non standalone
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans for France
| Data | Validity | Price per GB | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | Never expires | $5.89 | $5.89 | |
| 3 GB | Never expires | $2.96 | $8.89 | |
| 5 GBMost travellers | Never expires | $2.18 | $10.89 | |
| 10 GB | Never expires | $1.59 | $15.89 | |
| 20 GB | Never expires | $1.19 | $23.89 | |
| 50 GB | Never expires | $0.94 | $46.89 |
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 71 Mbps actually means in France
Travellers on Orbislo in France see a median download of 71 Mbps, measured across 2510 real sessions rather than a speed test we ran ourselves. That sits close to the Europe median of 71 Mbps, which makes France an unremarkable place to be connected, in the good sense.
The tenth percentile is 19 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.
At these speeds nothing on a phone is limited by the connection. Video calls are comfortable, a laptop can be tethered for a full working day, and large photo backups finish without planning around them.
Which networks you will be on
Orbislo carries traffic in France on Orange and SFR. 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 France: 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 France
A 100 MB plan for France 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 France it means the effective cost is nearer $0.00 a gigabyte than $0.00.
Because nothing expires, the cheapest way to buy for France 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 France
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 France and it attaches to Orange. 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 France
The measurements above are aggregated across France, and a national median hides real variation. We publish separate figures for Paris, Nice, Lyon and Bordeaux, 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.
What is restricted in France
- Stolen handset blocking: Under article L34-3 of the postal and electronic communications code, a handset reported stolen is blocked by its IMEI within four working days of the operator receiving the official theft report sent by the police or gendarmerie. The complaint should quote the IMEI, which dialling *#06# displays.
Worth knowing about France
- France is inside the European Union roam like at home area, so a plan from another EU country is billed at its domestic rates here, subject to the fair use test an operator may apply over a four month window.
- The European roaming regulation does not cover roaming inside French territory, so a trip from the mainland to an overseas department runs under article L.34-10 of the French postal and electronic communications code instead.
- French law obliges operators to keep each user's civil identity until five years after the contract ends, and that duty explicitly covers prepaid interpersonal communication services. A Conseil d'Etat decree sets how operators verify the identity given, so a French prepaid line is tied to a named person.
- The identity record an operator must keep lists surname and first names, date and place of birth, postal and email addresses and phone numbers. Where signing up is paid for, it also keeps the payment type, reference and amount, plus the date, time and place of an in-person transaction.
- Alongside 112, France runs its own emergency numbers: 15 for the SAMU medical service, 17 for police, and 18 for firefighters whenever a life is in danger. Deaf and hard of hearing callers use 114, which is free and takes SMS, chat, video calls or fax around the clock.
- Dial 196 from a mobile on land to reach the regional sea rescue centres about someone in trouble at sea, and 191 to report an aircraft accident or a missing aircraft. A risk to your safety or other travellers' can be reported on 3117 by voice or 31177 by SMS.
- FR-Alert, the state public warning system, has used cell broadcast on 4G since the end of June 2022. It reaches every phone connected to the network inside the alert zone with no sign up, and it appears even on a locked or silenced phone, though not on one switched off or in airplane mode.
- FR-Alert messages can be issued in several languages, particularly for areas known to draw tourists, so a warning received near a major sight may not arrive in French only.
- The French rule that extends domestic pricing between territories covers mainland France, French Guiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Réunion, Mayotte, Saint-Martin, Saint-Barthélemy and Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon. New Caledonia, French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna are not on that list.
- On a ship or a plane, a phone that connects to an onboard satellite network leaves the EU roaming rules and can be billed with no price cap. Service from land masts in a harbour, on a river or at an airport still counts as ordinary roaming.
- When a SIM from another EU operator roams onto a French network, the French network may not charge the home operator for emergency communications or for passing on the caller's location, and the home operator must text the user on arrival that 112 is free.
How France compares across Europe
- Speed rank
- 23 of 47 destinations we have measured in Europe
- Regional median
- 71 Mbps
- Consistency
- The slowest tenth still reaches 27 percent of the median
- Upstream networks
- 2, Orange, SFR
- 5G
- Yes, non standalone
- Next fastest nearby
- Bulgaria, 72 Mbps
- Next slowest nearby
- Croatia, 71 Mbps
- Cities with their own page
- 4: Paris, Nice, Lyon, Bordeaux
- tenth percentile
- 19 Mbps
- Behind these figures
- 2510 travellers, rolling 90 days
