France eSIM

It depends entirely on where your phone plan comes from, and the honest answer is that plenty of people do not need one.

If your plan is from an EU country, no. EU roaming gives you your home allowance in France at no extra cost, so buying anything is a waste.

If you are travelling from the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil or most of Asia, then yes. Carrier roaming to France typically costs more per day than our entire week plan.

UK travellers are the awkward case. Some networks kept free EU roaming after Brexit and others brought back daily charges, so check before assuming either way.

Our eSIM runs on Orange France on 5G. Orange is the largest of the four French operators and is generally strong in rural areas.

5G reaches Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Lille. 4G covers essentially everywhere else that people live.

The gaps are where you would expect them: the high Alps, parts of the Massif Central, and the interior of Corsica.

Our France plans start at $1.29 at checkout, no code needed.

A week in Paris is comfortably covered by the 3 GB for 15 days plan at $2.38. If you are driving through the country or working as you go, the 10 GB for 30 days at $6.58 is the better buy.

Our unlimited style plans start at $1.29 for a day. Full speed up to a daily allowance, then a reduced speed for the rest of that day rather than being cut off.

Every unlimited travel eSIM has a daily cap. The useful question for any seller is what the number is and what speed you drop to afterwards.

Public list prices checked on 30 September 2026.

Orange Holidays is worth a serious look in France specifically, because it is the home network and it includes a French number with calls and texts. If all you need is data, it is expensive for what it is.

Our 3 GB plan is $2.38. We are a small company that does not buy airport advertising, which is the entire reason for the difference.

This question comes up more for France than anywhere else, because Orange is French.

Orange Holidays gives you a French phone number with calls and texts included, which is genuinely useful if a French business or a landlord needs to reach you. Airalo is data only and cheaper per gigabyte.

If you need a number, Orange. If you need data across several countries, compare per gigabyte cost and look at regional plans, including ours. Neither answer is universal, which is why the question keeps getting asked.

Yes, and your account is untouched. WhatsApp runs over data, so it works exactly as it does at home.

Your number does not change, your chats do not move, you are not logged out, and no second account is created. WhatsApp just uses whatever data the phone has.

WhatsApp voice and video calls work, as do FaceTime, Telegram and Signal. Budget roughly 300 MB per hour of video calling.

Our France plans are data only, so no French number for ordinary calls and texts. If you need one, either keep your usual SIM active or look at Orange Holidays.

On for the eSIM line and off for your home SIM. It sounds inverted and it is correct.

Your eSIM joins Orange France as a visitor, so your phone classifies it as roaming even though nothing extra is charged. Leaving that setting off is the most frequent cause of an eSIM that shows signal and moves no data.

Your home SIM is the one that could actually run up a bill, so switch its roaming off.

The honest list, before you buy rather than after.

• Your phone must support eSIM. Most from 2019 onward do.
• You need an existing internet connection to install it, so do it at home on WiFi.
• Data only, so no French number for calls or SMS.
• A carrier locked phone may refuse any eSIM.
• Delete the profile by accident and you can usually reinstall, but not on another phone.

These apply to every travel eSIM sold, not only ours.

Around 3 GB for normal use. Paris in particular has WiFi in most cafes, hotels and museums, which takes the load off your allowance.

• Light use, maps and messaging and bookings: about 1 GB a week
• Normal use, adding photos, the metro app and a daily call home: 3 to 5 GB
• Heavy use, streaming on the TGV or tethering a laptop: 10 GB or more

The TGV is the one thing that changes the maths. A three hour train with a film running will take a gigabyte or more, and onboard WiFi is not reliable enough to depend on.

Yes. Corsica is part of France and covered by the same plan, and so are the Alpine resorts.

Ajaccio, Bastia and Porto Vecchio have good coverage. The interior mountain roads of Corsica are among the weakest signal areas in France, so download offline maps before you leave the coast.

In the Alps, resort villages like Chamonix, Val d'Isère and Courchevel are well covered. High lifts and back bowls are not, which is normal for mountains everywhere.

France is well covered, with the usual rural and mountain exceptions.

• Paris: 5G across the city and in most of the metro
• Nice and the Côte d'Azur: strong along the whole coast
• Lyon, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marseille and Lille: 5G in the centres
• Loire valley and Normandy: solid 4G, 5G in the larger towns
• Massif Central and rural Occitanie: thinner, with genuine dead spots
• Corsica: good on the coast, weak inland
• Alps: good in resorts, unreliable at altitude

Driving the rural south, download your route before you leave the motorway.

Install at home on WiFi before you travel. It takes two minutes.

We email a QR code after purchase. In phone settings, add an eSIM or mobile plan, scan it, and label the line. You can leave it off until you land.

Validity starts when the eSIM first connects to a French network, not when you buy or install it, so buying ahead costs nothing. You have 180 days to install before the profile lapses.

On arrival: turn the line on, set mobile data to it, and switch data roaming on for that line only.

From outside the EU, worth it. Ours starts at $1.29, runs on Orange France 5G, and covers Corsica and the Alps at no extra cost.

From inside the EU, not worth it, use the plan you already have. If you need a French number rather than just data, Orange Holidays is the better product and we would rather tell you that than sell you the wrong thing.