Belgium: local SIM, travel eSIM, or nothing at all

The question before the question

Belgium is in the EU, so roam-like-at-home applies. If your phone plan comes from an EU or EEA country, your domestic data allowance works here at domestic prices and there is nothing to buy. Check your fair-use cap if you are staying for months; otherwise you are done.

The rest of this page is for visitors from outside the EU — and for anyone crossing into Belgium on a non-EU plan as part of a wider trip.

Buying locally: what is actually there

Brussels Airport (BRU) has Proximus, Orange and Base counters in the arrivals hall, open 07:00 to 20:00. They sell physical SIMs only — no eSIM at the counter. If you land after 20:00, that route is closed until morning.

In town, the carriers have stores in the Brussels city centre around Place de Brouckère and Rue Neuve.

Expect around $12 for a prepaid SIM at the airport, and bring your passport: ID is required for registration in Belgium, so this is a form-filling transaction, not a grab-and-go one.

Buying an eSIM: what it costs

Four providers sell Belgium plans that we hold data for. Airalo's prices were read from its own site on 13 August 2026, Nomad's on 17 August 2026 and Saily's on 18 August 2026; all three are verified. The Holafly figures have since been verified too.

Provider	Plan	Price	Per GB	Source
Saily	1GB / 7 days	$3.99	$3.99	Verified
Airalo Belganet	1GB / 3 days	$4	$4	Verified
Nomad	1GB / 7 days	$4.50	$4.50	Verified
Saily	3GB / 30 days	$7.99	$2.66	Verified
Airalo Belganet	5GB / 30 days	$8.50	$1.70	Verified
Saily	5GB / 30 days	$10.99	$2.20	Verified
Nomad	5GB / 30 days	$12.50	$2.50	Verified
Airalo Belganet	10GB / 30 days	$13	$1.30	Verified
Saily	10GB / 30 days	$16.99	$1.70	Verified
Airalo Belganet	20GB / 30 days	$20	$1	Verified
Saily	20GB / 30 days	$25.99	$1.30	Verified
Airalo Belganet	50GB / 30 days	$32.50	$0.65	Verified
Nomad	50GB / 30 days	$45	$0.90	Verified

Those Airalo rows are all from Belganet, the cheaper of its two Belgium packages; the section below covers the other one. Note where that lands the comparison. The verified Belganet 5GB for 30 days at $8.50 is less than the $12 you would hand over at the airport counter, before you have queued or shown a passport, and it is live before you land. For a trip of a week or two, the local SIM has no case here.

Belganet and Belganet+, and why one costs half as much again

One Belgium-specific thing worth knowing at checkout. Airalo sells its Belgium eSIM under two package names, Belganet and Belganet+, and the prices diverge sharply for identical data:

All of those are verified figures. The + package runs roughly 45–50% above the standard one for the same gigabytes over the same window. What that premium buys is not stated by Airalo — it publishes the two names and the two prices and nothing about how the packages differ — so we cannot tell you it is faster, wider or better in any respect. What you can do is check the name on the listing: if it says Belganet+ at $12.50 for 5GB over 30 days, plain Belganet sells the same allowance for $8.50 as a separate listing.

Unlimited, if you want it

Airalo's verified unlimited, sold under the Belganet name, runs $9.50 for three days, $21 for seven, $29 for ten and $72 for 30. Nomad's, also verified, runs $11 for three days, $18 for five, $25 for seven and $33 for ten — above Airalo at every shared length. Holafly's verified unlimited is $20.50 for five days, $36.50 for ten and $50.50 for 15. Holafly sells six windows and no others — 3, 5, 7, 10, 15 and 30 days — so the 90-day plan this page used to list does not exist.

At ten days Airalo is around $8 cheaper and supports tethering, which Holafly does not. At fifteen and thirty days only Airalo and Holafly are still selling, and Airalo's $72 month undercuts Holafly's $73.90. Beyond that, a 10 or 20GB metered plan does the same job for less in a country this size.

Coverage: mostly a non-issue

All three Belgian carriers run strong nationwide 4G with 5G in the major cities, and the national average download speed we record is 55 Mbps. Proximus has the broadest nationwide reach including the rural Ardennes. Orange is particularly good in Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent. Base is the budget option.

No seller here names a Belgian host network. Airalo, Saily, Nomad and Holafly all disclose nothing about which network their eSIMs connect to; the three Belgian operators this page once put against Holafly's rows came from our own older data, not from Holafly. With all three national networks this strong, it is not a difference you are likely to notice.

The thin spots are small and specific: minor rural areas in the Ardennes forests, some border zones near Luxembourg and Germany, and the coastal dunes around De Panne, where indoor coverage can be weaker.

Verdict by trip

EU or EEA plan. Buy nothing.

Short non-EU trip, city-based. Travel eSIM. Airalo's verified Belganet 5GB for 30 days at $8.50 undercuts the airport SIM and skips the counter.

A month or more. A local Proximus SIM starts to make sense, mainly for the Belgian number and for the Ardennes coverage.

Tethering a laptop. Anyone but Holafly.

Landing late at BRU. The counters close at 20:00. Sort your eSIM before you fly.

For every plan we hold, side by side, see the Belgium hub.