Thailand eSIM
Data for Thailand on AIS and TrueMove, from $5.89. It never expires, tethering is included, and you install Orbislo once rather than once per trip.
- Networks
- AIS and TrueMove
- Real speed
- 52 Mbps median, 14 Mbps for the slowest tenth2,077 travellers, rolling 90 days
- 5G
- yes, non standalone
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans for Thailand
| 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 | |
| 50 GB | Never expires | $0.46 | $22.89 |
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 52 Mbps actually means in Thailand
Travellers on Orbislo in Thailand see a median download of 52 Mbps, measured across 2077 real sessions rather than a speed test we ran ourselves. That sits close to the Asia median of 43.9 Mbps, which makes Thailand an unremarkable place to be connected, in the good sense.
The tenth percentile is 14 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 Thailand on AIS and TrueMove. 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 Thailand: 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 Thailand
A 100 MB plan for Thailand 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 Thailand it means the effective cost is nearer $0.00 a gigabyte than $0.00.
Because nothing expires, the cheapest way to buy for Thailand 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 Thailand
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 Thailand and it attaches to AIS. 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 Thailand
The measurements above are aggregated across Thailand, and a national median hides real variation. We publish separate figures for Bangkok, Phuket, Chiang Mai, Krabi and Pattaya, 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 Thailand
A tourist SIM has to be registered against a valid passport under the regulator's rules, and one traveller may hold at most three SIM cards per brand.
What is restricted in Thailand
- Live face check at SIM registration: Since 18 August 2025 every new Thai SIM, prepaid or postpaid, and every replacement SIM that keeps an existing number is registered with real time facial recognition. Documents must be originals, so a foreign buyer has to present the passport itself.
- In-person registration for foreigners: Under an NBTC notification in force since 16 May 2026, a person without Thai nationality registers a SIM in person at an operator branch or authorised dealer, primarily on a passport. Other travel documents are accepted only with additional Thai government papers.
- Tourist SIM lifetime: Under NBTC measures published in the Royal Gazette on 29 August 2025, a Thai tourist SIM is valid for at most 60 days and cannot be extended by topping it up. Staying on a Thai tourist number past that point means registering a new SIM.
- Drone registration: Every drone, including one kept purely for fun, must be registered with the NBTC within 30 days of entering Thailand or buying it there, even if it is never flown. An unregistered drone can cost 100,000 baht, five years in prison, or both.
- Online posts about the monarchy: Criticising the Thai monarchy is a crime under a broadly interpreted law with long prison terms. People have been charged for sharing articles online, and the law covers accusations about any member of the Royal Family, past or present.
- Photos posted to social media: Posting images of people drinking alcohol or wearing clothing considered inappropriate can be illegal, and both the person who uploaded them and the people shown can be fined or imprisoned.
Worth knowing about Thailand
- A mobile number registered in an individual's name has to be activated within 60 days of the registration date. Leave it longer and the identity check has to be done again before the line will work.
- Keeping a tourist SIM running past 60 days from activation means confirming who you are a second time, either by texting the passport number to 4444161 free of charge and following the link that comes back, or in person at a shop.
- Once a tourist SIM has expired, service comes back only after the holder shows the passport again at a shop or clears the check through the operator's call centre.
- Incoming international calls on Thai lines now arrive with a warning code, +697 or +698, which operators must add under the NBTC's 2025 anti-fraud rules. Subscribers can choose to block calls carrying these codes.
- The same rules let automated text messages come only from registered sender names and oblige operators to check that any link is genuine before the message is delivered. A new SIM must be identity verified within seven days.
- Police answer on 191, which also covers ambulance and fire. The direct lines are 1669 for an ambulance and 199 for fire, and the Tourist Police answer on 1155.
- The Tourist Police run an app called Thailand Tourist Police that is open to visitors without a Thai SIM card. It carries messages to the police and pushes alerts about natural disasters and safety concerns near the user.
- Operators must keep the personal data of every active user for the whole life of the service and for at least 180 days after the contract ends, under the rule that took effect on 16 May 2026.
How Thailand compares across Asia
- Speed rank
- 10 of 28 destinations we have measured in Asia
- Regional median
- 42.95 Mbps
- Consistency
- The slowest tenth still reaches 27 percent of the median
- Upstream networks
- 2, AIS, TrueMove
- 5G
- Yes, non standalone
- Next fastest nearby
- Vietnam, 56 Mbps
- Next slowest nearby
- Kazakhstan, 51 Mbps
- Cities with their own page
- 5: Bangkok, Phuket, Chiang Mai, Krabi, Pattaya
- tenth percentile
- 14 Mbps
- Behind these figures
- 2077 travellers, rolling 90 days
