Local SIM or travel eSIM in Romania: the numbers

Check your own plan before you buy anything

Romania is in the EU. If your mobile plan is issued in another EU or EEA country, your domestic allowance normally works here at domestic rates, and nothing on this page will beat that. That covers a large share of arrivals at Bucharest and Cluj.

The rest of this page is for everyone else — visitors from the UK, US, Canada, Australia and elsewhere, where roaming is billed by the megabyte and buying something local is the sane move.

The local SIM route

Bucharest Henri Coanda (OTP) has a Relay store in arrivals selling Orange Romania SIMs at roughly 60 lei, about $13. It is the only airport counter we have on record there, and it does not sell eSIMs. Cluj-Napoca (CLJ) has both Orange and Vodafone available on arrival.

A passport is required for registration either way. Romania ties prepaid SIMs to an identified person, so there is no walk-up-and-go option at a kiosk.

In central Bucharest, Orange, Vodafone, Digi and Telekom all run stores, including on Calea Victoriei, and a city store will usually offer more plan choice than an airport counter. One thing we cannot tell you: how much data that 60-lei starter pack actually includes. Our records do not have it, and it moves with whatever promotion is running. Ask at the counter before you pay.

What the eSIMs charge

Airalo's Romania plans — sold under its own Noroc label, which is a product name rather than a network, since Airalo does not publish which Romanian carrier it roams onto — were read from its own site on 13 August 2026. Nomad's rows were read from nomadesim.com on 17 August 2026. Saily's and Holafly's were read off their own sites on 18 August 2026, so every row below is a checkout price. An earlier version of this table priced Nomad's 3 GB at $7.00, its 10 GB at $14.00 and its 20 GB at $22.00, and showed no plan above 20 GB; the checked figures are $9.00, $16.00 and $20.00, and there is a 50 GB plan.

The spread is wide. At the bottom, a gigabyte for a long weekend costs about $4. At 20 GB, a gigabyte costs $1.00 through Nomad, and at 50 GB a gigabyte costs $0.90 — a fourfold difference, driven entirely by how much you commit to up front. Holafly's unlimited plans sit apart at $20.50 for five days and $36.50 for ten. They make sense only if you genuinely cannot predict your usage, and Holafly does not allow hotspot sharing.

Coverage, and where it stops

Orange Romania has the widest 5G footprint and the strongest national coverage, which is why it is the one to ask for at a counter. Which network a travel eSIM lands on is not something Airalo, Nomad or Saily publish, so that choice is only available on a local SIM. Digi is the budget carrier and is well regarded for data. Vodafone is strong in cities and along the motorways. Average speed across the country runs around 45 Mbps.

Romania has one of the better mobile networks in Eastern Europe, and in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca and Timisoara you will not think about signal at all. The gaps that matter are specific: Carpathian trails above about 1,600 m, the Danube Delta reed channels once you are away from the villages, and the most remote rural settlements in the Moldova region. No SIM or eSIM fixes those — download offline maps instead.

Who should buy what

For a city break of under a week, a small eSIM plan is the least effort: no counter, no passport, working before you land. For a fortnight touring Transylvania, the 10 GB and 20 GB eSIM tiers are cheap enough per gigabyte that the local SIM's usual advantage disappears, and you skip the registration. The local SIM's real case is a longer stay where you also want a Romanian number for calls and local services.

If you are heading into the mountains or the Delta, choose on network rather than price and take an Orange local SIM, since no travel eSIM will tell you whose masts you are on. Full plan tables are on the Romania hub; if you are still weighing providers in general, see the cheapest eSIM comparison and how we test.