Local SIM or travel eSIM in Croatia — the numbers

First, check whether you need to buy anything

Croatia is in the EU. If your phone is on a contract from another EU or EEA country, it roams at your domestic rates and allowances here. Buying a Croatian SIM or a travel eSIM on top of that is spending money for nothing.

This page is for everyone else — British, American, Australian, Canadian and other non-EU visitors, plus EU customers on plans that exclude roaming.

The local SIM route

Three carriers sell prepaid: Hrvatski Telekom, still widely called T-Mobile Croatia; A1 Hrvatska, formerly VIPnet; and Telemach Croatia, formerly Tele2. HT is the one we recommend for visitors — it has the widest coverage on the islands and along the coast, though A1 is very competitive on the Adriatic and all three run strong 5G on the Dalmatian coast.

At Zagreb Airport, A1, HT and Telemach all have kiosks in the arrivals hall. They stay open until the last international arrival, and a basic tourist SIM typically runs €9–12. Split Airport has similar options. Reckon on about $11 either way.

You need your passport. ID registration is required on every Croatian prepaid SIM, with no anonymous option, so allow time at the counter — and note that at Split in summer that queue can reach 20 minutes.

We do not hold the data allowances attached to those €9–12 bundles, so we will not put a per-gigabyte figure on the local option. That matters for the comparison below.

The eSIM route

Four providers we hold plan data for sell Croatia. An earlier version of this page said all four run on HT and A1; nothing supports that. Airalo, Saily and Nomad publish no host network for Croatia or anywhere else, and Holafly's listing of HT, A1 and Telemach is its own unconfirmed claim. Airalo's prices were read from its own site on 13 August 2026, Nomad's from its own on 17 August 2026 and Saily's from its own on 18 August 2026; only the Holafly rows are indicative and should be checked before you buy.

Provider	Cheapest plan	Price	Best value plan we hold	Per GB
Saily	1GB / 7 days	$3.99	3GB / 30 days at $7.99	$2.66
Airalo	1GB / 3 days	$4	50GB / 30 days at $35.00	$0.70
Nomad	1GB / 7 days	$4	50GB / 30 days at $31.00	$0.62
Holafly	Unlimited / 5 days	$19	Unlimited / 25 days at $68.90	n/a

eSIM Go and eSIMCard also sell Croatia, but we hold no verified plan prices for either, so they are not in the table.

Saily is cheapest at the entry point. Airalo and Nomad both run the full ladder from 1GB to 50GB, and Nomad is the cheaper of the two at every shared size, bottoming out at $0.62 per gigabyte on its verified 50GB bundle. Airalo's advantage is breadth of duration — it sells 7- and 15-day versions of most sizes, and a short unlimited tier starting at $9.50 for three days. Holafly sells unlimited data by time rather than by gigabyte, and does not permit hotspot, which rules it out if you work from a laptop.

So which actually wins?

The standard advice is that local SIMs beat eSIMs on long stays. In Croatia that is hard to defend. $11 for an unknown allowance is not obviously better than $9 for a verified 5GB over 30 days, and it is plainly worse than $31 for 50GB if you use real volume.

Where the local SIM still wins is voice. A Croatian number, cheap domestic calls and the ability to top up at any kiosk are worth something if you are calling apartments, ferry offices and restaurants rather than messaging them. Travel eSIMs are data-only.

Where coverage runs out

None of the above changes these. Croatia's average speed is around 45 Mbps and the coast is well served, but signal thins in the interior and on the water:

• Remote inland Lika and Gorski Kotar
• Some small offshore islands, and mid-channel on ferry crossings
• Mountain hiking in the Velebit and the Dinaric Alps once you leave the main paths
• Deep forest trails at Plitvice Lakes

If your trip is hiking or sailing rather than coastal towns, download offline maps and stop worrying about which provider to pick. All of them fail in the same places.

Full plan-by-plan pricing is on the Croatia hub, and our checking method is described in how we test.