With the arrival of April and the corresponding travel season, the annual game of sidestepping high mobile roaming charges has kicked off once more.
Ralf Beyeler, telecom expert at moneyland.ch, compared the costs of getting online in 34 countries, and explains how to avoid high roaming fees.
In addition to the three big Swiss telecom companies Swisscom, Sunrise, and Salt, the comparison also accounted for travel eSIM services. These have long been a secret recipe for affordable Internet access while traveling in foreign countries.
Where can I get travel eSIMs?
A new trend in the Swiss market is that travel eSIM services are increasingly being offered by local Swiss companies. For example, the Swiss federal railway (SBB/CFF) and the airline SWISS have begun offering travel eSIMs. Mobile service provider Digital Republic also offers a special eSIM for travel to countries outside of Europe. In all of these cases, the Swiss companies simply use their branding and websites to market the offers, while the telecom service itself is provided by a foreign partner.
Additionally, there are numerous foreign service providers that offer travel eSIMs. Examples include Airalo, Airhub, Holafly, Maya Mobile, Redtea Go, and Ubigi. The selection of service providers and offers is massive.
If you are interested in using a travel eSIM, a good first step is to simply google the term “eSIM” alongside the country you will be traveling to. The search results should give you a good overview of available offers. It is a good idea to check the customer ratings, and stick to service providers that are rated highly.
Many service providers require you to install their app in order to buy their travel eSIMs. Payment is typically charged in US dollars. You can normally pay using credit cards, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Once you have paid, you can download the eSIM to your phone over the Internet.
Tip: Using a trusted VPN service when you travel to foreign countries is beneficial because it helps to protect your data. That also applies when you use a travel eSIM.
The cost of staying online over a long weekend
In the first comparison, moneyland.ch looks at the cost of using 5 gigabytes of data within a four-day trip – a long weekend, for example. The results show major differences between offers. While the cost is as low as 4 francs with the most affordable travel eSIM offers, using the most expensive service (Salt data roaming) costs nearly 2000 francs. That figure is hypothetical, because the connection would be disabled before your bill could reach that amount.
For travel to most European countries, the costs of getting online come to around 5 francs for this profile. However, the cost is much higher when you use data roaming from Swisscom (from 20 or 40 francs, depending on the country), Sunrise (from around 50 francs for European countries and 35 francs for the US and Canada), or Salt (from around 70 francs).
Salt customers traveling to Albania can benefit from exceptionally-large savings. While Salt charges 750 francs for five gigabytes of roaming data, using the most affordable eSIM would cost just 4.50 francs. In this case, using the travel eSIM works out 167 times cheaper than roaming with Salt. For travel to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia too, the potential savings are massive (6 francs instead of 750 francs), with the right travel eSIM costing 125 times less.
For countries outside of Europe, the comparison is somewhat hypothetical, because most people do not travel to another continent for a long weekend. But it is still interesting to see that the price differences are also huge. In 32 of the 34 countries, the cost of staying online with the most affordable eSIM is less than 30 francs. The two exceptions are Cuba (33.50 francs) and Namibia (87 francs).
An evaluation of travel eSIMs from SBB/CFF, SWISS, and Digital Republic reveals that Swiss service providers are normally much more expensive than their foreign competitors. Namibia is an exception, as the eSIM from SWISS is cheaper than offers from other providers that offer travel eSIMs for that country.
It is interesting to compare this year’s results with last year’s. With the exception of five countries for which prices have gone up, including the US, the cost of travel eSIMs has largely remained unchanged. Travelers to the US enjoyed the cheapest available travel eSIM offers in 2024, but this year the US only takes place 17. The biggest price hikes apply to Namibia. A year ago, there were travel eSIMs that cost just 32 francs for this profile. This year, getting online using the cheapest offer will cost you a much higher 87 francs.
“Because mobile service providers disable mobile roaming once your bill reaches a certain threshold (between around 50 and 500 francs), the actual costs you would pay are lower than what the comparison shows,” explains Ralf Beyeler. “Still, it is pretty clear that using travel eSIMs normally works out cheaper than using data roaming from your standard mobile service provider.”
The cost of staying online during a two-week holiday
The second comparison is based on an assumed usage of 20 gigabytes of data over a 14-day holiday. That is a fairly intensive use of mobile data.
Travel eSIMs for many European countries are available for around 13 francs. eSIMs for many Balkan countries are often more expensive. For example, travel eSIMs start at 16.50 francs for Albania, 19 francs for Serbia, and 20 francs for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
For travel outside of Europe, the differences are enormous for this profile. Depending on the country, you could pay as little as 11 francs or as much as 348 francs. That said, there are only two countries out of the 34 for which the cost exceeds 50 francs. Those are Namibia (348 francs) and Cuba (133 francs). Apart from those, the next most expensive countries are the Maldives (45 francs) and Egypt (43 francs).
Using data roaming from the three big telecom companies is much more expensive. The only exception to this rule is Cuba, as using a Swisscom mobile plan with the supplemental Caribbean data roaming bundle would cost around 100 francs. Using the cheapest travel eSIM would cost around 33 francs more.
The cost of using in the cheapest countries is 35 francs with Sunrise, just under 50 francs with Swisscom, and nearly 200 francs with Salt. Swisscom offers data roaming bundles for a number of countries, and for the Caribbean, at ongoing special prices. Staying online for 14 days in Germany, Spain, Thailand, and the US costs 49.90 francs. These special prices are not available to Swisscom’s prepaid mobile users. In the most expensive countries for this profile, the cost of using mobile roaming is nearly 140 francs with Swisscom, nearly 2800 francs with Sunrise, and almost 8000 francs with Salt. Of course, you would not actually get billed for that amount because mobile roaming will be deactivated once you reach a lower threshold.
Expert tips for using travel eSIMs
In many cases, travel eSIMs are an affordable option for getting online while traveling. In order to use travel eSIMs, your phone has to have eSIM functionality. That is the case with all newer iPhones, but not with many Android-powered phones. “Around half of all phones in Switzerland should support eSIMs,” estimates Ralf Beyeler.
The number of different travel eSIM providers is large. “The pricing is often similar across many providers, but there are also differences,” clarifies Ralf Beyeler.
In addition to travel eSIMs, Ralf Beyeler recommends also including local SIMs in your personal comparisons. “Depending on the country, using a local SIM card from that country can be cheaper than using a travel eSIM,” explains Beyeler. Namibia is an extreme case: While it is the most expensive country when it comes to travel eSIMs, you can get a local prepaid mobile SIM with 50 gigabytes of data for the equivalent of 10 francs.
It is worth noting though that buying a local SIM card is less convenient than buying a travel eSIM. You can buy a travel eSIM from the comfort of your home. The purchase process for travel eSIMs is normally available in English, and sometimes in other languages. One thing to watch out for when buying a travel eSIM is the risk of accidentally subscribing to an ongoing mobile plan. Most travel eSIMs are one-time prepaid offers, and not mobile plans.
Ralf Beyeler recommends that you double-check both the included data allowances, and the validity period after which the data expires. “Many travel eSIM offers are valid for 30 days, but they can also have longer or shorter expiry periods,” says Beyeler.
In its comparison, moneyland.ch only accounts for the cost of mobile data. “There are also offers that include phone calls, though you should be aware that you will get a different, foreign phone number,” remarks telecom expert Ralf Beyeler.
More on this topic:
Data roaming calculator
Compare Swiss mobile plans now
Methodology
For its analysis, moneyland.ch researched the prices of travel eSIM offers for 34 different countries on various continents. For each country, moneyland.ch compared prices based on two different user profiles. The first user profile assumes a usage of five gigabytes of data over a four-day period. The second user profile assumes a usage of 20 gigabytes of data over a 14-day period, which is a relatively intensive use of mobile data.
The cheapest eSIM offer that met both of the user profile requirements was then determined. When no single data bundle that met the required data amount was available, the calculation is based on the prices of multiple smaller data bundles. Getting multiple smaller bundles can, in some cases, be cheaper than getting a single large bundle. Only single-use prepaid offers were included in the comparison. Ongoing subscriptions that renew every month were not accounted for. The prices of travel eSIMs were converted to Swiss francs and rounded to the nearest 50 centimes. For that reason, the prices should be seen as approximations. The information should serve to provide orientation. In most cases, there are many similar offers from different service providers. It is possible that there are offers that are cheaper than those used for the comparison.
For calculations of data roaming with Swisscom, Sunrise, and Salt, the comparison accounts for the cheapest solution using data roaming bundles for the required amount of data and the country in question. These bundles are typically valid for one year, with only a few of them having shorter expiry periods. Salt also offers Data Pay Pass bundles that are not accounted for in calculations. Depending on how the data usage is distributed over the different days, these Data Pay Pass bundles can work out cheaper or more expensive. Many mobile plans include roaming allowances, commonly for roaming in many European countries. The allowances are always included in the mobile plan – not just when you take a trip. Because the costs of these roaming allowance is combined with that of the rest of the mobile plan, and therefore impossible to ascertain, moneyland.ch did not account for the roaming allowances included in mobile plans in its comparison. The moneyland.ch calculations are based on the assumption that the mobile plan used does not include roaming allowances.
Data calculations are based on a conversion rate of 1 GB = 1000 MB. The conversion was done using SI units.
More on this topic:
Find the cheapest data roaming solution
Compare Swiss mobile plans now
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