North Macedonia eSIM
Data for North Macedonia on A1 and Telekom, from $7.89. It never expires, tethering is included, and refills land on the line you already have, with nothing new to install.
- Networks
- A1 and Telekom
- Typical speed
- 49 Mbps typical, 12 Mbps at busy times
- 5G
- 4G only
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans for North Macedonia
| Data | Validity | Price per GB | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | Never expires | $7.89 | $7.89 | |
| 3 GB | Never expires | $4.30 | $12.89 | |
| 5 GBMost travellers | Never expires | $3.58 | $17.89 | |
| 10 GB | Never expires | $2.89 | $28.89 | |
| 20 GB | Never expires | $2.59 | $51.89 |
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 North Macedonia
Typical download speed on Orbislo in North Macedonia: 49 Mbps. That is below the Europe median of 71 Mbps, so plan around it rather than being surprised by it.
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 North Macedonia on A1 and Telekom. 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 North Macedonia: 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 North Macedonia
A 500 MB plan for North Macedonia starts at $0.68, 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 North Macedonia it means the effective cost is nearer $0.00 a gigabyte than $0.00.
Because nothing expires, the cheapest way to buy for North Macedonia 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 North Macedonia
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 North Macedonia and it attaches to A1.
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 North Macedonia
The figures above cover North Macedonia as a whole, and a national figure hides real variation. We publish separate figures for Skopje and Ohrid, 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 North Macedonia
Every A1 prepaid SIM starts out locked. Citing the Law on Electronic Communications, A1 keeps records on all prepaid users and opens service only after the holder's name, personal identification number and address have been submitted, checked and entered in its records.
What is restricted in North Macedonia
- Online SIM registration: Since July 2025 MTEL has let prepaid customers register a new SIM entirely online. The customer scans the card, scans an identity card or passport and takes a photo of their face, after which the number is confirmed and activated without a shop visit.
- Emergency number misuse: False or repeated non-emergency calls to 112 carry network penalties set by the regulator. A first offence cuts the caller's phone off for seven days, a second for 30 days, and a third ends the contract with the handset permanently disconnected. Incoming calls still work during a temporary cut.
Worth knowing about North Macedonia
- Since 1 July 2021 a subscriber of any Western Balkans operator pays home prices here. The arrangement covers Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, applies to prepaid and contract lines alike, and needs no activation because operators apply it automatically.
- That arrangement stops at the edge of the region. Asked directly whether roaming costs with the European Union have come down too, the regulator answers no, and describes talks on the subject as still under way.
- The regional deal has a fair use test with published numbers behind it. An operator that finds a customer spent most of the last four months outside their home network can ask them to adjust, and after two weeks may charge 3.2 euro cents a minute for calls made, 1.6 for calls received, 1 cent a text and 0.77 cents a megabyte.
- Calls to 112 are free, and operators must connect them 24 hours a day from any telephone, public payphones included. The older emergency service numbers such as 192, 193, 194 and 195 stay in use alongside 112.
- When someone dials 112, the network must pass the emergency centre the caller's name, number, call time and location in real time. The number is sent even when the caller has set it to hidden.
- Network location for an emergency call can be coarse. A1 states that the position it can determine for a caller is accurate to within 1 km in urban areas and 35 km in rural ones, so a caller in the countryside should describe where they are.
- In February 2026 the European Commission proposed opening negotiations to bring North Macedonia and the other Western Balkan partners into Roam Like at Home. Surcharges between the EU and the region end only once each agreement is concluded and the partner has fully aligned with EU roaming rules.
- Until then, EU visitors rely on voluntary commitments that already reduce roaming charges between the two regions. Those commitments bind only some mobile operators in the EU and the Western Balkans, so the saving depends on the traveller's home network.
How North Macedonia compares across Europe
- Regional typical speed
- 71 Mbps
- Upstream networks
- 2, A1, Telekom
- 5G
- 4G only
- Next fastest nearby
- Montenegro, 52 Mbps
- Next slowest nearby
- Georgia, 48 Mbps
- Cities with their own page
- 2: Skopje, Ohrid
