Best eSIM for Mexico 2026: 12 Plans Tested & Ranked

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The catch: Movistar Mexico owns no radio network and no spectrum.

Every eSIM sold to you as “Movistar” is physically AT&T, and AT&T scores 4.7 out of 10 on Opensignal coverage against Telcel’s 8.8.

The top three at a glance

🥇 Ubigi. The only provider that publishes all three of its Mexican partners, and the only one with Altan Redes 700 MHz, the band that actually reaches small towns. $9.00 for 3GB over 30 days.

🥈 Sim Local. Twenty gigabytes for $22.05 after ESIMDUDE10, on AT&T, with the carrier named openly rather than hidden behind “our local partners”. Cheapest per gigabyte in the whole set.

🥉 Holafly. Unlimited on both Telcel and Movistar from $23.90 for a week. Expensive per day, but it is the only unlimited plan with confirmed Telcel underneath it.

Does an eSIM work in Mexico?

Yes. An eSIM works in Mexico on any unlocked eSIM capable phone, and every network in the country supports it. A travel eSIM for Mexico is a data profile you download before you fly, which attaches to a local Mexican network the moment you land and turn data roaming on.

Any eSIM Mexico profile behaves the same way once installed, so compatibility is the only thing worth checking before you buy, and it is a device question rather than a Mexico question. 

iPhone XR and later, Pixel 3 and later, and Samsung Galaxy S20 and later all carry an eSIM, with two exceptions that catch people out.

Handsets bought in mainland China are generally excluded, and carrier locked phones from US and Canadian operators sometimes refuse a second profile entirely. Check before you pay, not at the arrivals gate.

Two practical notes for an eSIM for Mexico travel specifically. Install at home on stable wifi, because the activation code is single use and a failed download at the airport burns the profile. 

And leave your home SIM in the phone with data switched off, so bank verification codes still reach you while the Mexican profile carries the data.

The thing every Mexico eSIM guide gets wrong

Mexico has three mobile radio networks, not four. Telcel, AT&T Mexico, and the wholesale network Altan Redes. Movistar is not one of them.

Telefonica moved Movistar Mexico onto AT&T Mexico’s radio access network from 2020, extended the agreement to 2030 in May 2024, and returned all of Movistar’s spectrum licences to the Mexican government by 2022. 

Movistar kept its own core and transport, and nothing else. In April 2026 Telefonica agreed to sell the whole thing to a consortium led by OXIO. The brand survives. The antennas were never theirs.

Which matters, because look at who sells what.

Provider	Network it names	What that physically is
Ubigi	Altan Redes, Movistar, Telcel	Altan 700 MHz, AT&T, Telcel
Holafly	Movistar and Telcel	AT&T and Telcel
Sim Local	AT&T Mexico	AT&T
Airalo	Movistar, plus one unnamed	AT&T, plus unknown
Roamless	Movistar only	AT&T only, no fallback
Nomad	AT&T, Movistar fallback	AT&T both ways
Saily, Maya, Jetpac, GigSky, Instabridge, Amigo	Not published	Unknown

So a traveller comparing an “AT&T eSIM” against a “Movistar eSIM” is comparing a network against itself. And more than half the field will not tell you what you are buying at all.

Now the part that makes it expensive. Telcel carries 63.5% of Mexico’s 131 million mobile lines. Here is how it compares on independent measurement.

Metric	Telcel	AT&T	Movistar	Altan
Coverage Experience, Opensignal, 0 to 10	8.8	4.7	not rated	not rated
Download, Opensignal, Jun to Aug 2025	46.0 Mbps	27.2 Mbps	not rated	not rated
5G download, Opensignal	180.7 Mbps	49.7 Mbps	not rated	not rated
Download, MedUX, Oct to Dec 2025	51.54 Mbps	29.11 Mbps	31.13 Mbps	20.31 Mbps
Latency, MedUX	67.34 ms	51.43 ms	89.20 ms	57.19 ms
Availability, Opensignal	98.3%	99.1%	not rated	not rated

The 8.8 against 4.7 is the number to hold on to. Coverage Experience is the metric that maps to whether you have signal on a mountain road in Oaxaca, and it is the single widest gap in the whole Opensignal Mexico report.

Here is the honest consequence, and it costs this site money to write it. If your trip stays in Mexico City, Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Guadalajara, Monterrey or Puerto Vallarta, the network barely matters. AT&T holds up fine in cities and actually beats Telcel on latency.

If you are driving the Yucatan interior, the Oaxaca highlands, Chiapas or Baja, it matters enormously, and you should pay more for Telcel or Altan access rather than less for AT&T.

Mexico eSIM Network Speed and Coverage Data

Speed matters, but Mexico is really a coverage story. Independent network measurements show a large gap between Telcel and AT&T once you look beyond whether a phone simply has a signal.

Metric	Telcel	AT&T
Coverage Experience	8.8 / 10	4.7 / 10
Download Speed	46.0 Mbps	27.2 Mbps
5G Download Speed	180.7 Mbps	49.7 Mbps
MedUX Download Speed	51.54 Mbps	29.11 Mbps
MedUX Latency	67.34 ms	51.43 ms
Availability	98.3%	99.1%

The interesting number is not raw speed. It is 8.8 versus 4.7 for Coverage Experience. Telcel has the much stronger geographic coverage score, while AT&T actually edges it on availability and latency.

That explains why an AT&T-based travel eSIM can work perfectly well around Mexico City, Cancun or another major tourist centre but become a weaker choice once your itinerary heads inland.

Where Network Choice Matters Most

Destination	Network Choice	What to Expect
Mexico City	Telcel or AT&T	Both are strong choices
Cancun Hotel Zone	Telcel or AT&T	Little reason to pay extra purely for coverage
Playa del Carmen	Telcel or AT&T	Strong tourist-corridor coverage
Tulum town	Telcel or AT&T	Both are viable around town
Valladolid / Yucatán interior	Telcel or Altan preferred	Coverage matters more away from the coast
Oaxaca de Juárez	Telcel or AT&T	Both viable in the city
Oaxaca highlands	Telcel preferred	Coverage becomes more important
Chiapas	Telcel preferred	Better choice when travelling beyond cities
La Paz	Telcel or AT&T	Both viable around populated areas
Baja road trips	Telcel preferred	Expect more variation between towns

There is no honest universal Mbps figure for a road through Oaxaca or the Yucatán interior. Performance changes with the tower, congestion, terrain and even where you are standing. What the national measurements can tell us reliably is that Telcel has the coverage advantage, while AT&T remains perfectly competitive for many city-based trips.

For most travellers, that coverage difference matters more than a small price gap between plans.

The best eSIMs for Mexico, ranked

1. Ubigi

Ubigi is the only travel eSIM in this category that publishes all three of its Mexican network partners, and it is the only one that includes Altan Redes. That matters more in Mexico than almost anywhere else.

Altan runs on 700 MHz, a low band that travels much further through hills and vegetation than the higher spectrum Telcel and AT&T use for capacity, and it is the network reaching Pueblos Magicos and small towns the other two skip.

Ubigi is run by Transatel, which is owned by NTT. It is not a reseller that appeared during the eSIM boom, and the network partner list is published as an operational document rather than a marketing claim.

Plan	Price	Per GB
500MB / 2 days	$3.00	$6.00
1GB / 30 days	$5.00	$5.00
3GB / 30 days	$9.00	$3.00
10GB / 7 days	$26.00	$2.60
10GB / 30 days	$29.00	$2.90
20GB plus unlimited at 2 Mbps / 7 days	$45.00	n/a

What works. Three networks, named. If Telcel is congested at the Cancun airport taxi rank you are not stuck.

The 20GB plan that falls back to unlimited at 2 Mbps rather than cutting off is the most sensible fair use design in the whole category, because 2 Mbps still does maps and messaging where 512 kbps does not.

What does not. It is expensive per gigabyte. Three dollars a gig at the 3GB tier is triple what Sim Local charges at 20GB. There is no eSIMTweaks code for Ubigi, so what you see is what you pay.

Buy Ubigi if your route leaves the cities. If it does not, you are paying a premium for coverage you will never call on.

2. Sim Local

Sim Local is the cheapest credible Mexico eSIM once the code is applied, and it names AT&T Mexico as its carrier openly rather than hiding behind “reliable local partners”.

Plan	List	After ESIMDUDE10	Per GB
3GB / 7 days	$8.50	$7.65	$2.55
5GB / 30 days	$10.00	$9.00	$1.80
10GB / 30 days	$14.75	$13.28	$1.33
20GB / 30 days	$24.50	$22.05	$1.10
Unlimited, 5GB per day / 7 days	$26.25	$23.63	n/a
Unlimited Pro, 10GB per day / 15 days	$51.25	$46.13	n/a

What works. One dollar ten a gigabyte at the 20GB tier is the best real price in this article.

The unlimited tiers are also unusually honest: Sim Local states the daily allowance in the product name, 5GB or 10GB per day, rather than burying it. Ten gigabytes a day is more than five times what Nomad allows.

What does not. AT&T only, so you inherit the 4.7 coverage score. In the Yucatan interior and the Oaxaca highlands that is a real handicap, and no discount fixes a missing signal.

The right buy for a city trip, a resort week, or anyone whose route stays on the main highways.

3. Holafly

Holafly is the only unlimited provider that confirms Telcel access on its own product page, alongside Movistar.

Reddit travellers in the Yucatan report the same thing independently, and it lines up with the Opensignal coverage gap: Telcel is why Holafly works in places where cheaper unlimited plans do not.

Validity	Price	Per day
3 days	$10.90	$3.63
5 days	$17.50	$3.50
7 days	$23.90	$3.41
10 days	$31.90	$3.19
15 days	$43.90	$2.93
30 days	$64.90	$2.16

What works. Genuine Telcel underneath, no gigabyte counting, and the “Always On” 1GB monthly backup across 150 plus countries is a real safety net rather than a marketing line.

What does not. Hotspot is capped at 1GB per day, which is the clause that decides this for anyone working off a laptop. And Holafly publishes no fair use threshold and no throttled speed anywhere in its own documentation, only that any reduction lasts no more than one day.

Nomad tells you it throttles at 2GB to 512 kbps. Holafly tells you nothing. Given the choice, take the disclosed limit.

At 30 days, $64.90 buys unlimited on Telcel. The same money buys nearly 60 gigabytes from Sim Local on AT&T. That is the trade, stated plainly.

Right for a short heavy trip on a phone. Wrong if you tether.

Alternatives are ranked in the Holafly alternatives guide.

4. Nomad

Nomad is a rounding error away from Sim Local on price and lands on the same AT&T radio, with Movistar as a fallback that is also AT&T.

Plan	List	After ESIMDUDE15	Per GB
1GB / 7 days	$5.00	$4.25	$4.25
3GB / 30 days	$7.00	$5.95	$1.98
10GB / 30 days	$15.50	$13.18	$1.32
20GB / 30 days	$27.50	$23.38	$1.17

Uncapped hotspot is the reason to pick Nomad over Holafly if you carry a laptop.

The catches carry over from everywhere else Nomad operates: unused profiles force activate on day 60, validity cannot be extended, and buying with a code makes the plan non-refundable once activated.

Full detail in the Nomad eSIM promo code page.

5. Saily

Saily is Nord Security’s travel eSIM, and it is the only provider here shipping an ad blocker, web protection and a virtual location feature inside the same app as the data plan. If you already pay for a VPN, that bundle is worth real money.

Plan	List	After ESIMDUDE	Per GB
1GB / 7 days	$4.99	$4.49	$4.49
3GB / 30 days	$9.99	$8.99	$3.00
5GB / 30 days	$14.99	$13.49	$2.70
10GB / 30 days	$23.99	$21.59	$2.16
20GB / 30 days	$37.99	$34.19	$1.71

The honest problem. Saily will not say which Mexican network it uses, describing it only as “the best local network providers in Mexico”.

In a country where the coverage gap between the available networks is nearly two to one, that is the one specification that decides whether the plan works in Oaxaca, and it is the one Saily withholds. Two other independent guides flag the same thing.

Verdict: 4.1 / 5. Buy it for the security features and the app, not for a guarantee about coverage.

More in the Saily coupon code page and the Airalo versus Saily comparison.

6. Maya

Maya sells Mexico as unlimited only, soft capped at 5GB per day before dropping to 3 Mbps. That combination is better than it sounds. Five gigabytes is two and a half times Nomad’s daily allowance, and 3 Mbps still runs maps, messaging and standard definition video where 512 kbps runs nothing.

Validity	List	After eSIMTWEAKS10	Per day
3 days	$9.99	$8.99	$3.00
7 days	$19.99	$17.99	$2.57
14 days	$27.99	$25.19	$1.80
30 days	$49.99	$44.99	$1.50

At $44.99 for a month of unlimited, Maya undercuts Holafly’s $64.90 by $19.91 and beats it on the throttle floor.

It loses on the one thing Holafly publishes and Maya does not: the network. Buy the right company, the travel eSIM is at maya.net, not the similarly named Mexican domestic operator.

7. Airalo

Airalo is the only provider here selling Mexico packs with real voice minutes and SMS attached, on Movistar. For anyone who needs to ring a hotel, a clinic or a colectivo driver, that is not a nice to have.

Plan	List	After ESIMDUDE10	Per GB
5GB, 50 min, 50 SMS / 30 days	$18.50	$16.65	$3.33
10GB, 100 min, 100 SMS / 30 days	$26.00	$23.40	$2.34
20GB, 200 min, 200 SMS / 30 days	$42.50	$38.25	$1.91
50GB, 500 min, 500 SMS / 30 days	$54.00	$48.60	$0.97

That 50GB pack is the lowest cost per gigabyte anywhere in this article, and it includes voice.

The data-only Chido line still exists and is cheaper in small sizes. Movistar means AT&T radio, so the coverage caveat applies.

Details on the Airalo promo code page.

8. GigSky

GigSky gives 100MB for seven days free in Mexico, which is enough to confirm the profile installs and attaches before you spend anything. That is a genuinely useful thing to have and almost nobody else offers it.

Plan	List	After ESIMADVICE15	Per GB
100MB / 7 days	Free	Free	n/a
3GB / 15 days	$8.49	$7.22	$2.41
10GB / 30 days	$21.49	$18.27	$1.83
20GB / 180 days	$29.99	$25.49	$1.27

That 180 day validity on the 20GB plan is the best answer here for anyone doing repeat trips or a long slow drive south. Network is not published.

See the GigSky promo code page.

The rest, briefly

Roamless. Pay as you go at $2.95 a gigabyte with no expiry, dropping to $1.35 on volume. Ten gigabytes runs $16.45. Genuinely useful if your trips are irregular, because unused data never dies. It rides Movistar alone, which is AT&T alone, with no fallback at all.

Jetpac. $24.99 for 10GB over 30 days, $49.99 for 30GB. Bulk discounts of 15 to 20% if you buy multiple packs, which suits families. Its unlimited plan gives 3GB a day then 1 Mbps. Network not published.

Instabridge. $29.00 for 10GB over 30 days. Nothing wrong with it, but it is double Sim Local’s price for the same shape of plan and does not name a network. It suits people already using the app for wifi.

Amigo eSIM. $52.00 for 10GB, which is $4.58 a gigabyte even after the 12% code. That is roughly four times what Sim Local charges. There is no coverage or feature story that justifies it, and it is here only so you know to skip it.

Should you just buy a local Telcel SIM instead?

Usually the local SIM wins on price. In Mexico, it does not, and that is unusual enough to be worth showing.

Telcel Amigo Sin Limite	Approx USD	Data	Per GB
MXN 100 / 30 days	$5.90	1.5GB	$3.93
MXN 150 / 30 days	$8.85	2.5GB	$3.54
MXN 200 / 30 days	$11.80	3.5GB	$3.37
MXN 300 / 60 days	$17.70	5.5GB	$3.22
MXN 500 / 60 days	$29.50	8GB	$3.69

Against Sim Local at $1.10 a gigabyte and Nomad at $1.32, Telcel prepaid is roughly three times the price per gigabyte. Gigabyte counts on these packs come from third party listings rather than Telcel’s own published pages, so treat them as close rather than exact.

Telcel does sell a Telcel eSIM directly, and it is the same Amigo prepaid product with a QR instead of a plastic card. It does not dodge the registration rule.

A Telcel eSIM is a Mexican issued line, so the CURP requirement applies to it exactly as it applies to a SIM from a shop counter, and buying it online rather than in an OXXO changes nothing about that.

What Telcel still wins. The best network in the country by a distance. Unlimited calls and SMS to Mexico, the USA and Canada. And unlimited WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, X and Snapchat that do not touch your data bucket at all, which for a lot of travellers is most of their usage.

What it loses. The CURP registration requirement, a physical shop, a passport, and an enforcement deadline hanging over the line.

My call: buy the travel eSIM. If you are staying more than a month and going properly rural, add a Telcel Amigo SIM once you are settled and can deal with the registration calmly.

Which is the best eSIM for Mexico with unlimited data?

Maya at $44.99 for 30 days after code is the best eSIM for Mexico unlimited data on price, and Holafly at $23.90 for 7 days is the best on network quality.

The two are answering different questions.

Every unlimited eSIM Mexico plan has a daily ceiling, so what you are really comparing is the size of that ceiling and how hard the fall is when you hit it.

Best eSIM Mexico unlimited data plans, ranked by what they publish:

Provider	Daily full speed allowance	Speed after	7 day price
Sim Local Unlimited Pro	10GB	not published	$46.13 for 15 days
Sim Local Unlimited	5GB	not published	$23.63
Maya	5GB	3 Mbps	$17.99
Jetpac	3GB	1 Mbps	$56.50 for 30 days
Nomad	2GB	512 kbps	see capped plans
Ubigi 20GB plan	20GB total	2 Mbps	$45.00
Holafly	not published	not published	$23.90

Sim Local’s Pro tier at 10GB a day is the most generous allowance published by anyone. Maya has the softest landing at 3 Mbps, which still runs maps and messaging. Nomad has the hardest at 512 kbps, which runs nothing. 

Holafly is the only one that will not tell you either number, and that silence is worth pricing in.

Which plan should you actually buy?

Your trip	Buy this	Cost
Long weekend in CDMX or Cancun	Sim Local 5GB / 30 days	$9.00 after code
One week, resort or city, heavy phone use	Holafly 7 days unlimited	$23.90
One week, working off a laptop	Nomad 10GB or Maya 7 days	$13.18 or $17.99
Two weeks, road trip, leaving the highways	Ubigi 10GB / 30 days	$29.00
A month, remote work, one base	Sim Local 20GB / 30 days	$22.05 after code
A month, heavy use, no counting	Maya 30 days unlimited	$44.99 after code
You need to make actual phone calls	Airalo 10GB with 100 minutes	$23.40 after code
You want to test before committing	GigSky 100MB free	$0
Repeat trips over a year	GigSky 20GB / 180 days	$25.49 after code

Common Mexico eSIM problems and fixes

Symptom	Cause	Fix
Installed, no data on landing	Data roaming off on the eSIM line	Settings, Cellular, the eSIM line, Data Roaming on
Signal in Cancun, nothing in Valladolid	AT&T only plan away from the highway	Buy Ubigi or Holafly for Telcel and Altan access
Speed collapsed after a few hours	Daily fair use threshold on an unlimited plan	Wait for the 24 hour reset or switch to a capped plan
Bank SMS codes not arriving	Most Mexico eSIMs are data only	Keep the home SIM active with data off, or buy Airalo with SMS
Phone shows 3G in a small town	Normal in Mexico, 2G and 3G are still live	Nothing to fix, Telcel 3G covers 96.2% of the country
Profile will not install at the airport	QR codes are single use and airport wifi drops	Always install at home on stable wifi before flying

Best eSIM for Mexico FAQ’s

The Verdict

Mexico is a coverage country, not a speed country. Every provider here is fast enough in Mexico City and Cancun.

What separates them is what happens on the road to Hierve el Agua, and the answer to that comes down to a single specification that most of this industry declines to publish.

And whatever you buy, install it before you fly. A single use QR code and a dropping airport wifi connection is a bad combination, and I have burned a profile that way in Bangkok, which is a mistake you only need to make once.

Buen viaje.