A travel eSIM is not only for your phone. If your plan allows it, you can share that connection with a laptop, a tablet, a travel companion or all three at once. This is the feature that turns a cheap data plan into a mobile office.
It is also the feature providers are quietest about, because sharing burns data quickly. Here is how to set it up on any phone, what it really costs, and which rules to check before you rely on it.
First, check your plan allows it
Not every travel eSIM permits tethering, and some permit it with a separate limit that is much smaller than your main allowance.
Our plans allow hotspot use against your normal data allowance, so a gigabyte shared to a laptop costs the same as a gigabyte used on your phone. Airalo and Saily also allow tethering. Holafly allows it but caps sharing at one gigabyte per day regardless of how much you use on the phone itself, which is worth knowing before you plan to work from a cafe.
Prices and settings in this guide were checked by hand in August 2026. Providers change plans often, so always confirm on the provider page before you buy.
Turning on the hotspot
On iPhone
- Go to Settings, then Personal Hotspot.
- Switch on Allow Others to Join.
- Set a Wi-Fi password you will actually remember, because you will be typing it on a laptop.
- On your laptop, pick your iPhone from the Wi-Fi list and enter that password.
One trap catches a lot of people here. If you have two lines active, your iPhone shares whichever line is set for cellular data. Go to Settings, then Cellular, then Cellular Data, and make sure the travel eSIM is selected. Otherwise you are quietly tethering through your home SIM at roaming rates.
On Samsung
- Go to Settings, then Connections, then Mobile Hotspot and Tethering.
- Tap Mobile Hotspot and switch it on.
- Tap the network name to set a password, and check the band setting if a device cannot see your hotspot.
Samsung phones let you choose which SIM the hotspot uses under SIM manager. Check that it is pointed at the eSIM.
On Pixel and other Android
- Go to Settings, then Network and internet, then Hotspot and tethering.
- Tap Wi-Fi hotspot and switch it on.
- Set a password, then connect from your laptop.
Android also offers USB tethering and Bluetooth tethering in the same menu. USB is worth knowing about, because it is more stable than Wi-Fi and charges your phone at the same time.
- ✓Hotspot allowed on your normal allowance
- ✓No separate daily sharing cap
- ✓Share with a laptop, tablet or a friend
- ✓Plans from 1 GB to unlimited
What sharing actually costs
Tethering does not use extra data per megabyte, but the devices you connect are far hungrier than a phone. These are rough hourly figures.
| What you are doing | Roughly per hour | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Laptop email and documents | About 20 MB to 40 MB | Similar to phone browsing, slightly heavier. |
| Laptop web browsing | About 60 MB to 100 MB | Desktop sites load far more than mobile versions. |
| Video call from a laptop | About 500 MB to 1 GB | Laptops default to higher resolution than phones. |
| Cloud sync in the background | 500 MB and up | Dropbox, OneDrive and iCloud are the silent killers. |
| Streaming to a laptop screen | 1.5 GB to 3 GB | Bigger screen usually means higher quality by default. |
| A second phone on your hotspot | Roughly the same as yours | Two people on one plan uses about double. |
Take one number from that table seriously: background cloud sync. A laptop that has been offline for a few days will happily push a few gigabytes of photos and documents the moment it finds a connection. Pause your cloud services before you tether, or you may lose a whole plan in ten minutes without opening a single web page.
How to share without wasting data
- Pause cloud backup first. Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive and iCloud all have a pause option. Use it before you connect.
- Turn off automatic updates. Windows and macOS updates are enormous and will start without asking.
- Use a metered connection setting. On Windows, mark the hotspot as a metered connection and the system throttles its own background traffic. macOS has a similar low data mode.
- Close video tabs. An autoplaying video in a forgotten tab runs all afternoon.
- Turn the hotspot off when you stop. Devices stay connected and keep syncing quietly.
- Prefer USB tethering for long sessions. More stable, and your phone does not flatten its battery.
When the hotspot will not work
The laptop connects but has no internet
Usually the phone is sharing a line with no data. Check that the travel eSIM is set as the cellular data line, and that data roaming is on for it.
The hotspot option is missing entirely
Some carrier locked phones hide tethering. If your phone came bundled with a home contract, that is the likely cause, and unlocking it fixes it.
The laptop cannot see the hotspot
Switch the hotspot band from 5 GHz to 2.4 GHz. Older laptops often cannot see the 5 GHz network at all. On Samsung this sits under the Mobile Hotspot settings menu.
It connects then drops after a minute
Battery saver mode shuts hotspots down to preserve charge. Plug the phone in, or turn battery saver off while tethering.
It works but everything is slow
Check whether you have passed the daily full speed allowance on an unlimited plan. Speeds drop after that on every provider. Also try moving the phone closer to a window, since the phone needs a decent signal to share a decent connection.
Battery, and a word of warning
Running a hotspot is one of the hardest things you can ask of a phone battery. Expect to lose somewhere around a quarter of your charge per hour of sharing, more if the signal is weak, because the radio works harder to hold a marginal connection.
If you are going to work from a cafe for a few hours, bring a power bank or sit near a socket. And do not leave a hotspot running in your bag all day, which is the fastest way to arrive at your hotel with a dead phone and no map.
Common questions
Can I share my eSIM with a friend's phone?
Yes. Their phone joins your hotspot exactly like a laptop would. Remember that two people browsing uses roughly twice the data of one, so size your plan for that.
Does the hotspot work when my phone is locked?
Yes, connected devices stay online while the screen is off. New devices sometimes need the phone awake to join the first time.
Can I tether an Apple Watch or a smart TV?
Anything that joins a normal Wi-Fi network can join your hotspot, including a hotel room smart TV. Be careful with televisions though, because they stream at high quality and will empty a plan fast.
Is tethering safe on public networks?
Your hotspot is your own private network, so it is generally safer than a shared cafe connection. Set a proper password rather than leaving the default, particularly in a busy hotel.
The short version
Check your provider allows sharing and whether they cap it. Point the hotspot at the travel eSIM rather than your home SIM. Pause cloud sync before you connect a laptop. Keep the phone charged. Do those four things and tethering abroad is genuinely reliable.
- ✓Tether a laptop on your normal allowance
- ✓No separate daily sharing cap
- ✓Plans sized from 1 GB up to unlimited
- ✓Install before you fly
