Gift an eSIM
Give somebody gigabytes. They do not expire, and you do not have to guess the country.
The two things that make a money gift card annoying are that it runs to an expiry date and that it is denominated in a currency the recipient may not be spending. Gigabytes have neither problem.
1
Code, redeemed exactly once
0
Days until the gigabytes expire
197
Destinations one balance reaches
0
Card details the recipient needs to redeem
Why data and not money
A gift card denominated in money loses value in two ways. There is a date in the terms after which it is worth less or nothing, and it sits in one currency while the person you gave it to is spending another. Data has no exchange rate and no clock.
This is the same promise the the Orbislo wallet makes to everybody else. Data you have paid for is data you own until you use it. We are not being generous by refusing to expire a gift. We simply have nothing to expire, which is why the gift is measured in gigabytes in the first place.
One code, redeemed once, into their wallet
A gift card is a code and an amount of data. The recipient signs in, enters the code, and the gigabytes are added to their balance. The code is marked redeemed at that moment and is tied to the account that used it.
- One code, one redemption. There is no partial redemption and no second use by anybody.
- The data joins the balance they already have. It is not a separate pot to keep track of.
- A message can be attached to the code, so the person redeeming it knows who it came from.
- The recipient is charged nothing and needs no card details to redeem it.
- An unredeemed code is simply unredeemed. It sits there until somebody enters it.
The real advantage: you do not have to know where they are going
This is the part that beats gifting a country pack, and it is the reason to read this page. A pack bought for Japan is worth nothing to somebody whose plans moved to Korea, and every travel eSIM sold as a single country ticket has that failure mode built in.
Wallet data does not, because it draws in 197 destinations from one balance. So this works for somebody who has not booked yet, somebody moving abroad for a job that has not started, and somebody who travels constantly and would rather you did not guess. The current list is on the destination list.
Four ways to give somebody connectivity
| What you give | Does it expire | Survives a change of plan | What you have to know |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orbislo gift card, in gigabytes | No | Yes, in 197 destinations | Nothing. One code covers it |
| A single country pack | Yes. Airalo's cheapest global gigabyte runs 7 days | No. It is bound to the country you chose | The exact destination, before you buy |
| A gift card denominated in money | Usually. Check the terms | Only if the currency matches | Nothing, but they can lose the value |
| Another Orbislo gift code, sent later | No | Yes, it adds to the same balance | Nothing. Send one whenever you like |
The country pack row uses Airalo's own published listing, checked on 1 August 2026. That is their figure, not ours, and it is in lib/facts.ts with the date so it can be rechecked.
Who this is actually for
Four cases account for almost all of it, and they have one thing in common: the giver knows the person is going somewhere and does not know the details.
- Somebody moving abroad. The first month in a new country is the month they use the most data and know the least about local plans.
- A parent giving a student a term of data instead of money. The longer version of that is on our page for students abroad.
- An employer sending a contractor away for a fortnight, without putting a company card in a personal account.
- A leaving present from a team, where nobody knows the destination and everybody knows the person is going.
For a recurring gift, send another code
A gift card is one code and one amount, and nothing stops you sending the next one. Each code the recipient enters adds to the balance they already hold, so a parent can send one at the start of every month and an employer can send one before every trip, and the recipient keeps a single running total instead of a stack of separate gifts.
The second code needs nothing new set up either. If they are still in the same destination, the data reaches them on the line they already have, with no new install. If they have moved on, the first use in the new destination installs that line in one tap. And because the balance never expires, a code sent early waits until the trip starts.
What the recipient needs before the first trip
They need a phone that supports eSIM. That is most phones made after about 2018 and not all of them, and the list by model is on the device list. Check before you buy rather than after, because the code is easy to give and awkward to explain.
They also need to install a line. The first time they use the balance in a destination, the app issues that destination's line, and installing it is a tap and a confirmation on iOS 17.4 and later and a short walk through a settings menu elsewhere. Refills after that arrive on the line they already have. If the phone is locked to a carrier the line may not install until the carrier unlocks it, and some operator branded handsets ship with eSIM switched off entirely, the Pixel 4 among them.