Switzerland eSIM
Data for Switzerland on Swisscom and Salt, from $5.89. It never expires, tethering is included, and refills land on the line you already have, with nothing new to install.
- Networks
- Swisscom and Salt
- Typical speed
- 112 Mbps typical, 39 Mbps at busy times
- 5G
- yes, standalone and non standalone
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans for Switzerland
| Data | Validity | Price per GB | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | Never expires | $5.89 | $5.89 | |
| 3 GB | Never expires | $2.63 | $7.89 | |
| 5 GBMost travellers | Never expires | $1.98 | $9.89 | |
| 10 GB | Never expires | $1.49 | $14.89 | |
| 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 line closes, and customers get at least 100 MB of free rescue data a month even at zero balance.
What 112 Mbps actually means in Switzerland
Typical download speed on Orbislo in Switzerland: 112 Mbps. That puts Switzerland well above the Europe median of 71 Mbps.
The tenth percentile is 39 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 Switzerland on Swisscom and Salt. 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 Switzerland: yes, standalone and 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 Switzerland
A 100 MB plan for Switzerland 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 Switzerland it means the effective cost is nearer $0.00 a gigabyte than $0.00.
Because nothing expires, the cheapest way to buy for Switzerland 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 Switzerland
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 Switzerland and it attaches to Swisscom.
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.
One local thing worth knowing before you buy, which we put in the buy flow rather than in the terms: Some of the best coverage in Europe, on wholesale that is among the most expensive anywhere. The price here reflects what the networks charge us, not a markup.
Coverage across Switzerland
The figures above cover Switzerland as a whole, and a national figure hides real variation. We publish separate figures for Zurich, Geneva, Interlaken and Zermatt, 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 Switzerland
Before a mobile line is handed over or first activated, the Swiss provider or its reseller must check a passport, identity card or Swiss foreigner's permit valid on that day, and record the holder's name, date of birth, document type and number, nationalities and address.
What is restricted in Switzerland
- Online gambling: Swiss telecom providers must block access to online gambling that is not licensed in Switzerland and is run by operators based abroad or hiding their location. Two authorities keep the block lists, so many foreign casino and betting sites will not load over a Swiss provider's connection.
- Mobile signal boosters: Only a mobile operator, or a firm it has hired, may put a mobile repeater into service. The regulator seizes and usually confiscates a privately run booster it finds, and the person running it faces a fine plus the cost of locating the interference it caused.
Worth knowing about Switzerland
- Excellent coverage and genuinely expensive wholesale. That is the honest reason the price here is higher than in Italy. We are not marking it up, it costs us more.
- Roam like at home is a rule of the European Union and the European Economic Area states, extended to Moldova and Ukraine. Switzerland belongs to none of them, so a European home allowance stops at the Swiss border and the country is billed as an unregulated destination.
- Swiss technical rules revised on 1 April 2025 cover unauthenticated emergency calls, meaning a call placed over a network that is not your own operator's, so that an emergency call still connects when the only mast in range belongs to somebody else.
- Radio equipment brought in from abroad has to meet the Swiss interface requirements before it may be used here, and the regulator publishes both those requirements and a running list of non compliant devices to check against.
- Foreign passports and foreign identity cards are both accepted for a mobile line. The seller must make a clearly legible electronic copy of the original document, and a reseller has three days to pass the details and the copy to the network provider.
- For a prepaid line the record must also hold the time of sale or first activation, the name and full address of the shop or activation point, and the name of the employee who registered the customer.
- Mobile providers must keep a subscriber's identification details for as long as the customer relationship lasts and for six months after it ends, and must be able to supply them during that time.
- 112 is the main emergency number and reaches the police emergency centre. It works from a foreign SIM card and from a prepaid phone with no credit left. Police is also 117, the fire service 118, ambulance 144 and poison control 145.
- The SBB transport police answer on 0800 117 117. The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs consular helpline is 0800 247 365 from inside Switzerland and +41 800 247 365 from abroad.
- When you call an emergency number, your phone's built-in location function may be switched on without your consent, and your location must be identified in real time as far as the technology allows.
- Telephone providers must put emergency calls ahead of all other calls, and the licensed mobile networks must also accept emergency contact by real time text, so a caller who cannot speak can type instead.
- A provider may temporarily disconnect a customer from the network when that is needed to keep emergency services reachable, and must tell the affected customer at once if it can reach them.
- Swiss internet providers must carry data without technically or commercially treating senders, content, services, applications or devices differently. The only exceptions are legal or court orders, network security, a customer's explicit request and temporary, exceptional congestion, and any different treatment must be disclosed.
How Switzerland compares across Europe
- Regional typical speed
- 71 Mbps
- Upstream networks
- 2, Swisscom, Salt
- 5G
- Yes, standalone and non standalone
- Next fastest nearby
- Kosovo, 158.7 Mbps
- Next slowest nearby
- Finland, 102 Mbps
- Cities with their own page
- 4: Zurich, Geneva, Interlaken, Zermatt
