Ivory Coast eSIM
Data for Ivory Coast on Orange and MTN, from $19.89. It never expires, tethering is included, and refills land on the line you already have, with nothing new to install.
- Networks
- Orange and MTN
- Typical speed
- 30 Mbps typical, 7 Mbps at busy times
- 5G
- 4G only
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans for Ivory Coast
| Data | Validity | Price per GB | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | Never expires | $19.89 | $19.89 | |
| 3 GB | Never expires | $14.63 | $43.89 | |
| 5 GBMost travellers | Never expires | $13.38 | $66.89 |
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 30 Mbps actually means in Ivory Coast
Typical download speed on Orbislo in Ivory Coast: 30 Mbps. That sits close to the Africa median of 30 Mbps, which makes Ivory Coast an unremarkable place to be connected, in the good sense.
The tenth percentile is 7 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 Ivory Coast on Orange and MTN. 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 Ivory Coast: 4G only. A well provisioned 4G cell comfortably outruns a congested 5G one, which is why the figure above is throughput rather than a network generation.
What data costs in Ivory Coast
A 1 GB plan for Ivory Coast starts at $19.89, which is $19.89 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 Ivory Coast it means the effective cost is nearer $14.32 a gigabyte than $19.89.
Because nothing expires, the cheapest way to buy for Ivory Coast 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 Ivory Coast
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 Ivory Coast and it attaches to Orange.
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.
Getting a local SIM in Ivory Coast
A local line is issued only in person. Decree 2017-193 requires the operator to see the subscriber face to face and to check a valid document, which for a foreign visitor means a biometric passport, a biometric national identity card from an ECOWAS member state, or a biometric document issued by the National Identification Office.
What is restricted in Ivory Coast
- Where SIMs may be sold: SIM cards may only be sold in an operator's own agencies, offices and branches or on the premises of dealers the operator has approved. Sales anywhere else are banned and the cards are confiscated by the regulator, although an operator may run a registration stand elsewhere after notifying the regulator 48 hours ahead.
- Minimum age for a line: Nobody under 16 may take out a mobile subscription. For a minor under 18, a legal guardian has to appear in person with an accepted identity document and a legal document proving guardianship, and the operator keeps a copy of it.
- Identity checks in internet cafés: Internet café managers must ask every customer for one of the identity documents accepted for a SIM, such as a biometric passport, and log the name, document number and expiry date, the terminal used and the start and end time of each session.
- Lost or stolen SIM: A subscriber must report the loss or theft of a SIM, or a change of holder, to the operator without delay. If it goes unreported, the registered subscriber is answerable for any offence committed with that SIM and can be prosecuted.
- Passing a line on: A registered SIM cannot simply be handed to someone else. Once a change of holder is notified, the operator suspends the line immediately unless the new holder is identified, and a line registered to a person who has died may not be used until it is registered again.
Worth knowing about Ivory Coast
- Selling a SIM that is already activated or already identified is banned, and the regulator confiscates any pre activated card or access device it finds, so nobody here can hand a visitor a working line off the shelf.
- Under the Abidjan protocol, a subscriber from a signatory West African country who roams in another signatory country pays no more than that country's highest local rate for up to 30 days, then the home operator's own roaming rates.
- That West African free roaming allowance runs out after 30 calendar days abroad, and incoming calls stop being free once 300 minutes have been used, after which the home operator's ordinary published rates apply again.
- Operators must keep copies of the identity documents and registration data for as long as a subscription lasts and for at least three years after it ends.
- The Abidjan free roaming protocol is in force between Côte d'Ivoire and Guinea, Senegal, Mali, Togo, Burkina Faso and Benin, and it covers voice calls and texts only. Mobile data is not part of the scheme.
- Under that protocol, outgoing calls and texts are charged at the highest local rate of the visited country for up to 30 calendar days. After that, the home operator's catalogue roaming prices apply until the subscriber has been back home.
- Since 14 June 2023, ECOWAS community roaming has applied between Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana. Subscribers from either country keep their own number and receive calls free while roaming, and Ivorian subscribers in Ghana saw voice, SMS and data prices fall by up to 90 percent.
- The Ivorian regulator coordinates the rollout of ECOWAS roaming regulation C/REG.21/12/17 across the region, and the regulation is being put into effect through bilateral agreements signed between member states.
- Emergency numbers in Côte d'Ivoire are 185 for an ambulance, 180 for the fire service, and 110, 111 or 170 for the police.
- Political demonstrations take place in Abidjan and regional towns, particularly around elections, and UK travel advice warns that internet access might be restricted if there is significant unrest. Keeping offline maps and key phone numbers saved on the handset is sensible.
- The regulator withdrew its 2023 rules on retail mobile offers in August 2024. Airtime and bundles bought from 16 September 2024 onwards follow each operator's own offer terms, so the expiry shown with a bundle is the one that counts.
- Phone companies and internet providers collect a specific tax of 3 percent of the pre-tax price of calls and internet access under Article 1141 of the General Tax Code, and the caller or internet customer bears it.
- Draft net neutrality guidelines put to public consultation from 6 July to 6 August 2026 treat blocking lawful content, throttling traffic a customer has paid for and prioritising one particular service as clear violations, justified only in exceptional emergencies.
How Ivory Coast compares across Africa
- Regional typical speed
- 29.5 Mbps
- Upstream networks
- 2, Orange, MTN
- 5G
- 4G only
- Next fastest nearby
- Morocco, 31 Mbps
- Next slowest nearby
- Egypt, 29 Mbps
- Cities with their own page
- 1: Abidjan
