Comparing SIM cards and eSIMs for Egypt

The headline: Egypt is expensive for eSIM data

Most comparison pages on this site conclude that a travel eSIM undercuts the local SIM for short trips. Egypt is the country where that conclusion is least safe.

Verified Airalo pricing runs from $5.50 per GB at the entry tier down to $2.10 per GB at 20GB. For comparison, the same provider's Czech plans bottom out at $0.72 per GB. Egypt is three to five times the price of a European eSIM for the same data, and the network you get it on averages around 28 Mbps.

Meanwhile a local tourist SIM at Cairo, Sharm el-Sheikh or Hurghada airports costs about $8. That is cheap enough that the local option deserves a proper look rather than the usual dismissal.

What each side actually costs

Airalo's figures below were read from its own site on 13 August 2026 and Nomad's from nomadesim.com on 17 August 2026. The Saily numbers were read off Saily's own checkout on 18 August 2026, and came back far higher than the ones we used to publish. Only the Holafly numbers are indicative, so treat those as a guide rather than a quote. eSIMCard's rows have been withdrawn: we read its own pages on 18 August 2026, found the figures we held were wrong, and could not store the real ones. See our eSIMCard page.

On unlimited plans, Holafly's indicative $11.70 for three days is the cheapest way to stop counting gigabytes; Airalo's verified equivalent is $19.50. Over a month the gap runs the same direction — Holafly $74.90 against Airalo $90. Holafly does not support hotspot tethering, which rules it out if you intend to work off a laptop.

Which networks you actually get

This is the part that matters more than a dollar or two in Egypt.

eSIMCard publishes a pair: Vodafone Egypt and Orange Egypt. That is the seller's own listing and nobody has confirmed it against the carriers. Airalo, Nomad, Saily and Holafly publish nothing at all — none of the four discloses a host network in any country — so with those four you do not know which Egyptian operator you are buying, and we are not going to guess on their behalf.

That gap matters because the operators are not equivalent. Vodafone is the stronger network here: widest nationwide coverage, the most reliable 4G in tourist areas, and the best option for Luxor, Aswan, Sinai and the Red Sea resorts. It is also the one people rate for staying connected on a Nile cruise. Orange is a genuine competitor with good tourist bundles.

If your trip is Cairo and a beach, none of this is worth agonising over. If it involves a cruise, Upper Egypt or Sinai, a local Vodafone SIM is the only way to know what you are on: of the eSIMs, only eSIMCard publishes a network at all, and its Egyptian listing is one you would have to open yourself.

Where nothing works

No SIM solves these, so plan around them rather than shopping for them:

• Western Desert and Sahara interior — Siwa is reachable, deep desert is not
• The road stretches between Luxor and Abu Simbel
• Sinai Peninsula interior mountains
• Red Sea offshore diving sites, which have no signal at all

Download offline maps before any of these, and tell someone your plan if you are heading into the desert.

Our verdict

The caveat we cannot resolve: we know the airport tourist SIM costs around $8, but we do not hold a verified data allowance for it, so we cannot put it in the per-GB table honestly. Ask what the bundle contains before you hand over your passport — and you will need your passport, because Egypt requires ID registration for local SIMs.

Full provider pricing for the country is on our Egypt hub.