Kenya eSIM
Data for Kenya on Safaricom and Airtel, from $9.89. It never expires, tethering is included, and refills land on the line you already have, with nothing new to install.
- Networks
- Safaricom and Airtel
- Typical speed
- 33 Mbps typical, 7 Mbps at busy times
- 5G
- yes, non standalone
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans for Kenya
| Data | Validity | Price per GB | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | Never expires | $9.89 | $9.89 | |
| 3 GB | Never expires | $6.30 | $18.89 | |
| 5 GBMost travellers | Never expires | $5.58 | $27.89 | |
| 10 GB | Never expires | $4.59 | $45.89 | |
| 20 GB | Never expires | $4.14 | $82.89 |
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 33 Mbps actually means in Kenya
Typical download speed on Orbislo in Kenya: 33 Mbps. That sits close to the Africa median of 30 Mbps, which makes Kenya 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 Kenya on Safaricom and Airtel. 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 Kenya: 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 Kenya
A 100 MB plan for Kenya starts at $0.46, 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 Kenya it means the effective cost is nearer $0.00 a gigabyte than $0.00.
Because nothing expires, the cheapest way to buy for Kenya 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 Kenya
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 Kenya and it attaches to Safaricom.
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 Kenya
The figures above cover Kenya as a whole, and a national figure hides real variation. We publish separate figures for Nairobi, Mombasa and Maasai Mara, 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 Kenya
Kenya's SIM registration rules require the operator to retain a copy of the identification document of every subscriber, which is why the counter asks for the original and takes a copy before the line works.
What is restricted in Kenya
- Documents a foreigner registers with: Under subscriber registration regulations published in May 2025, a foreigner registers a Kenyan line with a valid passport or a Foreign National Registration Certificate. The operator or its agent must authenticate the document against the relevant government database before registering the line.
- No registering a line for someone else: Kenyan law bans proxy registration of SIM cards. The only exception is a parent or guardian registering a line for a child, so each adult in a travelling group has to register their own line on their own document.
- False registration details: Knowingly giving false information to register a line is an offence punishable by a fine of up to one million shillings, up to six months in prison, or both. An operator must deactivate a line once it establishes that false registration details were used.
- Handset IMEI whitelisting: From 1 January 2025 Kenya began whitelisting handsets by IMEI for tax compliance, but a phone running on a foreign number while roaming needs no declaration, and the revenue authority says tourists and short term visitors are not affected. Visitors who buy a local SIM get a support process for device compliance.
- Telegram during school exams: Telegram was blocked on Safaricom and Jambonet networks during the national secondary school exams (KCSE), from 8 to 24 November 2023 and again from 7 to 22 November 2024. A visitor in Kenya during the November exam weeks should not rely on Telegram.
- Telegram during 2025 exams: NetBlocks reported Telegram restricted again during the 2025 KCSE exams. Its tests found Telegram completely unreachable on Safaricom, while on Airtel it connected only 42 to 45 percent of the time.
- Protest day disruption, June 2024: On 25 June 2024, during protests against the Finance Bill, internet traffic across Kenya dropped from about 4:25 pm and only partly recovered at 11:40 pm. Operators blamed undersea cable faults, while the digital rights coalition that published the traffic data said the evidence pointed to a deliberate disruption.
Worth knowing about Kenya
- Kenya enforces this by cutting lines off. Operators deactivated 287,214 numbers in a single quarter for being registered against the wrong identification details, and the regulator set a hard date by which everybody had to confirm their registration.
- The regulator runs a free check on handsets. Dial *#06# for the fifteen digit IMEI and text it to 1555, and you are told whether the number is valid and which model it belongs to, which is how you avoid a counterfeit phone here.
- In May 2025 the High Court ordered the government, the Communications Authority and others not to carry out any internet shutdown, throttling or interference with social media, telephony and data services until a case brought by seven civil society groups is decided.
- In July 2026 the High Court ruled that authorities cannot have websites blocked without a court order, striking down a provision of the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes (Amendment) Act, 2025 that let the national cybercrimes committee order internet providers to block sites and apps.
- Telephone and internet data services bought in Kenya carry excise duty of 15 percent of their excisable value, the rate set by the Excise Duty Act as last amended in 2023.
- Fees for sending money through a mobile phone provider's money transfer service carry a separate excise duty of 15 percent of their excisable value under the same Act, separate from the duty on telephone and data services.
- On Safaricom prepaid, an account expires once it has been inactive for 120 days after the validity of the last recharge ends. Any airtime balance is then forfeited, M-Pesa balances excepted, and the number can be recycled and sold to another customer.
- Kenya's emergency numbers are 112 and 999, and Safaricom's prepaid conditions list both as emergency access numbers included in its prepaid service.
- Kenya is a founding member of the East African One Network Area, launched for voice in January 2015 with Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan. Tanzania joined in July 2023 and Burundi in August 2024, while the DR Congo and Somalia were still being encouraged to join in late 2024.
- Under the One Network Area, a subscriber from a member state pays nothing to receive calls while roaming in another member state, which matters for visitors from Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, South Sudan or Burundi who keep their home SIM active in Kenya.
How Kenya compares across Africa
- Regional typical speed
- 29.5 Mbps
- Upstream networks
- 2, Safaricom, Airtel
- 5G
- Yes, non standalone
- Next fastest nearby
- Rwanda, 34 Mbps
- Next slowest nearby
- Tunisia, 33 Mbps
- Cities with their own page
- 3: Nairobi, Mombasa, Maasai Mara
