eSIM for Africa

Twenty one countries, and the exact list matters far more than the number. Several are ones nobody expects to see on an Africa plan. Some of the continent's most visited destinations, South Africa among them, are not on it at all.

The full list: Algeria, Chad, DR Congo, Egypt, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Réunion, Rwanda, Seychelles, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Check your route against that before you read another word.

The surprises sit at both ends. Réunion is on the list, which is odd, because Réunion is legally part of France and sits in the Indian Ocean. Mauritius, Seychelles and Madagascar are on it too, so several island holidays are covered by an Africa plan. Chad, Niger and DR Congo are on it, which few consumer eSIMs bother with. Being listed is a coverage fact, not a travel recommendation, so read your government's advice for those three separately.

Zimbabwe and Rwanda, yes. Namibia and Ethiopia, no. South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Angola, Cameroon, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Benin, Togo and Sierra Leone sit outside the list too. This is the question that decides most Africa trips, and almost no comparison page will answer it.

Victoria Falls is the good news. Zambia and Zimbabwe are both covered, so the plan works in Livingstone and in the Zimbabwean town of Victoria Falls. You can walk across the bridge between them without buying anything new.

Gorilla trekking works on both sides as well, with Uganda and Rwanda both on the list. The gaps sit further south and east. A self drive through Namibia or Botswana is not covered anywhere, and neither is a Cape Town city break. A long layover in Addis Ababa gives you nothing either, even though Ethiopia is one of the busiest connecting points on the continent.

Six fixed data plans. The smallest is 1 GB for 7 days at $5.15, and the largest is 20 GB for 30 days at $85.90. In between you get 3 GB for 15 days at $13.75, 3 GB for 30 days at $14.60, 5 GB for 30 days at $22.90 and 10 GB for 30 days at $41.80.

A "from" price is close to meaningless on its own. A cheap headline can hide a tiny amount of data, so divide the price by the gigabytes before you compare anything. On this plan the 1 GB week costs the most per gigabyte, and the 10 GB and 20 GB months cost the least.

Mobile data across Africa costs more than in Europe or most of Asia, because there are fewer towers and less competition between networks, and our prices reflect that. If a price elsewhere looks far below this, check how many gigabytes you are actually being sold.

Routes that cross borders and stay inside the list. Four shapes work well: the East African safari circuit through Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda, a North African run across Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt, Victoria Falls from both the Zambian and Zimbabwean sides, and business travel between Accra and Lagos.

Those are where a single plan genuinely saves you effort. You cross a border and the same balance carries on working, with no second purchase and no second install. On a two country or three country itinerary that is worth real money and a lot less admin at every airport.

Outside those shapes the maths gets harder fast. A trip that mixes two covered countries with one uncovered country is not really a regional trip, it is two purchases pretending to be one. Map your route first, then count how many covered countries you will genuinely use data in. If the answer is one, you already know what to do.

A different network in each country, chosen by the plan rather than by you. Airtel carries most of the list: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Malawi, Nigeria, DR Congo, Chad, Gabon, Niger, Madagascar and Seychelles. Egypt runs on Vodafone, Ghana on Telecel, Morocco on Orange, Tunisia on Tunicell, Algeria on Djezzy, Zimbabwe on Econet, Mauritius on Emtel and my.t, and Réunion on SFR.

This matters more in Africa than anywhere else, because the networks are not equivalent. In Kenya the plan runs on Airtel rather than Safaricom, the country's largest network. In Nairobi and the main towns you will hardly notice the difference. Deep inside the big reserves, signal depends on the nearest tower, so save offline maps and lodge directions before you leave town.

Réunion landing on SFR is a useful reminder of how uneven the list is. Réunion runs on French infrastructure, so it behaves like a European market rather than a continental one. It is the single place on this plan where the experience resembles nothing else you will use it for.

Expect three things, and none of them are the eSIM itself. Voice calls over apps are restricted in Egypt, coverage away from towns falls off far faster than any map suggests, and after a land border your phone needs a few minutes to find the new network.

Egypt periodically restricts voice and video calling over apps at the carrier level. Messaging usually still works, the calls do not. That is network policy, not a fault with your plan, and it hits local SIM cards exactly the same way. Plan to type rather than call, or agree a backup app with whoever is waiting to hear from you.

Away from towns, a coverage map shows where a network could reach, not where the nearest tower actually stands. On long drives in Zambia, Tanzania or Madagascar, expect long stretches with no signal at all. The one thing that gets easier here is buying. A roaming eSIM skips local registration entirely, and in Tanzania that desk wants your passport, a photo and a fingerprint, and can take twenty to thirty minutes.

Buy the single country plan instead if you are only visiting one country. That is true almost every time, and it stays true even though the regional plan looks more impressive on paper. A country plan is priced against one market, so it usually hands you more data for less money. The Africa eSIM only earns its price when you genuinely cross borders and stay inside the covered list.

Two more cases where you should walk away. This page sells fixed data plans only, so if you spend your day on video calls, one of the bigger 30 day plans or a single country plan will suit you better. And if even one leg of your route sits outside the coverage list, you are buying a plan that goes dark on the day you most need it to work. We would rather you knew that before checkout than after.