The numbers on the Bangladeshi price list look like typos. Thirty gigabytes for 399 taka is about three dollars and twenty-five cents. Ninety gigabytes for 749 taka is roughly six. There is no country on this site where a local prepaid card beats an international travel plan by a wider margin, and if you are here for a month or more you would be foolish not to get one. The complication is that Bangladesh does not hand out mobile numbers casually. Every line, including the ones sold to visitors, is bound to an identity through a biometric check against a national verification platform, which means your fingerprints on a scanner and a wait while a system somewhere agrees you are who the passport says. This page covers what each operator charges in taka, exactly how that registration works when you are the foreigner at the counter, and where the whole exercise stops being worth the hour it takes.
What This Guide Covers
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Four Operators, One Very Crowded Market
Bangladesh had 189.83 million active mobile connections at the end of June 2026, in a country of roughly 175 million people. That arithmetic is not a mistake: carrying two SIMs is completely ordinary here, partly for the deals, partly because coverage genuinely varies by district. Understanding who is who takes about a minute.
Grameenphone, the Telenor-founded operator everyone shortens to GP, dominates with 86.59 million lines and about 45.6 percent of the market. Robi Axiata is second with 58.57 million and 30.8 percent, having merged the old Airtel Bangladesh business into itself, and it still sells under both names in places. Banglalink, owned by Veon, has 37.86 million lines and 19.9 percent. Teletalk, the state-owned operator, holds 6.80 million lines and 3.6 percent, and while it is the sentimental choice for some Bangladeshis it is the wrong choice for a visitor.
The number that separates them
Subscriber share is a poor guide. The measurement worth knowing is rural 4G availability, which OpenSignal put at 75 percent for Grameenphone, 65 percent for Robi and 58 percent for Banglalink in February 2026. In Dhaka, Chattogram or Sylhet city that gap is invisible and any of the three will do. On a road towards Bandarban, a tea estate track above Srimangal or a river town in the delta, it is the entire difference between a working phone and a decorative one. Grameenphone also won the first 700 MHz spectrum sold in the country at the January 2026 auction, and low-band spectrum is exactly what widens a rural footprint.
Speed, meanwhile, is uniformly ordinary. Ookla's late-2025 sample put Bangladesh 86th globally at around 41.72 Mbit/s on mobile, up from the high twenties a year earlier but nowhere near what a European or Gulf visitor is used to. Expect dependable rather than fast, on all four.
Biometric Registration: The Bit Nobody Warns You About
Since December 2015 every SIM sold in Bangladesh has been verified biometrically. For citizens that means matching fingerprints against the record attached to their 17-digit national ID number, and the system that does the matching is called the Central Biometric Verification Monitoring Platform. Residents are capped at ten registered lines per national ID, a limit BTRC tightened from fifteen. It is one of the more rigorous SIM regimes anywhere, and it is enforced at the point of sale rather than after the fact.
Foreigners do not have a Bangladeshi national ID, so the process substitutes travel documents for it. You are not exempt from the biometric step; you are routed around the ID lookup and into a separate tourist block on the same platform, with your fingerprints captured at the counter to bind the number to you.
What the counter will ask for
1. Your actual passport, not a photocopy or a photo on your phone. The clerk needs the photo page and the visa or entry stamp page.
2. One or two passport-sized photographs. Some outlets take a picture on the spot, plenty still want the physical prints, and a set of six costs almost nothing to have made in any Bangladeshi town.
3. A local address. A hotel booking is accepted and nobody scrutinises it.
4. Fingerprints, on a small scanner on the counter. The capture itself takes seconds.
5. Payment, in taka, cash or card.
The scan is quick. The verification is not always. What travellers report at Dhaka arrivals is a combined queue and system wait of 30 to 45 minutes after a full flight lands, and the delay is rarely the staff being slow: it is the platform round trip, sometimes repeated when a print does not read cleanly. Two further limits are worth knowing. A visitor may register a maximum of two SIMs against one passport, so a family cannot be equipped by whichever member is least tired. And tourist numbers are recycled automatically about 30 days after activation unless you deactivate them yourself, so the SIM you keep as a souvenir is dead long before you next visit.
The eSIM does not get you around it locally
A Grameenphone eSIM sounds like the elegant compromise, and for residents it is: 200 taka for a new connection, 99 to convert an existing number. For a visitor it is not, because the same know-your-customer rules apply and operators will not issue a QR code by email to a foreign passport holder. You still have to stand at the counter and put your fingers on the scanner. The only route that genuinely skips registration is an international travel eSIM bought before you arrive.
Grameenphone: The Default If You Are Leaving Dhaka
GP is the operator to pick if any part of your itinerary happens outside a divisional city. It has the deepest rural build, the newly acquired 700 MHz spectrum, live 5G pockets in all eight divisional cities, and the shop network to match, including centres in Gulshan, Banani, Dhanmondi and Uttara that are open ordinary retail hours and considerably less frantic than the airport.
Grameenphone data pack prices in 2026
The headline packs, all activated by USSD code once the line is live: 30 GB for 30 days at 399 taka (dial *121*3090#), 8 GB for 30 days at 349, 90 GB for 30 days at 749, 100 GB with bonus at 798, and 200 GB with bonus at 898. At roughly 123 taka to the dollar in August 2026, that puts the 30 GB pack at about 3.25 dollars and the 200 GB monster at just over seven. The SIM itself is around 200 taka. Promotions rotate constantly, so treat these as the shape of the market rather than a fixed tariff.
Sitting alongside those is the GP Tourist SIM, the country's first product aimed squarely at visitors, sold at more than 40 GP centres plus air, land and sea ports. It comes in three bundles: Basic at 999 taka for 7 days, Standard at 1,499 for 15 days and Premium at 1,999 for 30 days. The Basic pack carries 30 taka of talk time, 120 local minutes, 15 GB of bonus data and 50 local SMS.
Look closely at that and you will notice something. The 7-day tourist bundle costs 999 taka for 15 GB. A plain GP prepaid SIM at 200 taka plus the 399 taka pack gives you 30 GB for 30 days at 599 taka total. The tourist bundle is buying you bundled voice minutes, a slightly simpler transaction and a card the counter staff would rather sell. If you want minutes and cannot be bothered comparing USSD codes while jet-lagged, it is fine. If you want data, it is roughly double the price for half the allowance.
Robi, Banglalink and Teletalk
Robi Axiata is the credible alternative and often the cheaper one. Its regular packs run 15 GB for 7 days at 198 taka, 15 GB for 28 days at 399 with cashback attached, 40 GB with 700 minutes for 799, and 60 GB with 1,500 minutes for 899. Robi also sells tourist SIMs against a passport and visa, and travellers have reported picking up a 10 GB thirty-day arrangement at the airport for around 250 taka, which is about two dollars. Rural 4G availability of 65 percent puts it between GP and Banglalink, and it was the operator that switched on commercial 5G first, hours ahead of Grameenphone, on 1 September 2025.
Banglalink is the aggressive discounter. Two gigabytes for seven days at 36 taka is real, and so is a gigabyte for fifteen days on a 121 code. Nothing in this market is expensive, but Banglalink is the operator that prices as though it needs the customers. In Dhaka, Chattogram and along the Cox's Bazar strip it is entirely adequate. It is also the network that thins out fastest upcountry, at 58 percent rural 4G availability, so treat it as the city option. Worth knowing if you are eSIM shopping: Nomad is the travel provider that rides Banglalink, which explains both its low prices and its urban bias.
Teletalk is the state operator and it is not the one to buy. It carries 3.6 percent of the market, its network is the thinnest of the four, and its main claim to fame is the December 2021 five-site 5G trial around the Secretariat and Dhanmondi that made headlines and then stalled for nearly four years. Bangladeshis keep Teletalk lines for exam results and government services. Visitors have no use for it.
Why the subscriber numbers have been falling
BTRC's monthly totals dipped for several consecutive months during a SIM re-verification drive, with roughly 1.1 million connections deactivated as duplicate and unverified registrations were flushed out after the national equipment identity register went live. It has no direct effect on a visitor buying a fresh tourist line, but it does explain why counter staff are noticeably more careful about the paperwork than travel blogs written a few years ago would suggest.
What the Options Actually Cost
Everything below converts at roughly 123 taka to the US dollar, the mid-August 2026 rate. The spread between the cheapest local option and the cheapest international one is wider here than almost anywhere else on this site, which makes the trade honest and easy to see.
| Option | What you get | Price | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| GP prepaid SIM + data pack | 30 GB, 30 days | About 599 BDT all in (4.90 USD) | Anyone staying weeks, going rural, willing to do the biometrics |
| GP Tourist SIM Basic | 15 GB, 120 minutes, 7 days | 999 BDT (8.10 USD) | Short visits where bundled voice minutes matter |
| GP Tourist SIM Premium | 30 days of bundled data and voice | 1,999 BDT (16.25 USD) | A month-long stay with one simple transaction |
| Robi prepaid + pack | 15 GB, 28 days | Around 399 BDT for the pack (3.25 USD) | Budget-conscious travel that still leaves the city occasionally |
| Banglalink prepaid + pack | 2 GB, 7 days | 36 BDT (0.30 USD) | A few days in Dhaka on almost no money |
| Travel eSIM, metered | 10 GB, 30 days on Banglalink | About 20 USD | City trips where the queue costs more than the money |
| Travel eSIM, unlimited | 7 days on Grameenphone | 27 to 27.50 USD | Short, intense trips with heavy navigation use |
Put plainly: the local card is between four and twenty times cheaper depending which pair you compare. The international eSIM is worth its premium only for what it removes, which is the fingerprint counter, the passport photos and the first hour of your trip.
Where to Buy a SIM in Bangladesh
Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, Dhaka. The SIM booths sit in the arrivals concourse just past the customs green channel, so you cannot really miss them on the way out. Grameenphone runs its counter around the clock; Robi's is generally staffed from about 07:00 to 23:00. This is the fastest place to get connected and the slowest place to get served, because everyone off your flight had the same idea. Layout, hours and the fare situation outside are covered on the Dhaka Airport guide.
Operator centres in the city. GP Experience Centres and equivalent Robi and Banglalink outlets are scattered through Gulshan 1 and 2, Banani, Dhanmondi, Uttara and Motijheel, and the same biometric process runs there with a fraction of the crowd. If you have arrived on an eSIM and are adding a local line as a second string, this is the sane way to do it: pick a weekday morning, bring the passport, and treat it as a half-hour errand rather than an arrival ordeal.
Land and sea ports. Tourist SIMs are authorised at every port of entry, including the Benapole land crossing from India, so an overland arrival is covered too. Do not assume a booth is staffed at an obscure crossing at an awkward hour.
Topping up once your pack runs out
This is the easy part. Flexiload is everywhere: thousands of small shops, mobile money agents and phone accessory stalls will take cash and push credit onto your number in under a minute, and bKash and Nagad handle it from an app if you have one. Data packs are then activated by USSD code, which is why every Bangladeshi has a mental library of strings beginning with *121*. Ask any shopkeeper and they will dial it for you.
eSIM or Local Card for Bangladesh?
This site earns money when you buy an eSIM and it is still going to say plainly that the local card is better value here by a margin that is not close. What follows is where each one genuinely wins.
Buy a local SIM when
Buy a travel eSIM when
The version most repeat visitors settle on is both, in sequence. Arrive on an international eSIM so the first two hours are frictionless, then decide in daylight whether the trip is long enough to justify a local line. Given that a month of Grameenphone data costs less than a taxi across Dhaka, the answer is usually yes for anyone staying past a fortnight. The Bangladesh eSIM guide sets out which travel provider rides which operator, which matters more than the price difference between them.
Practical Connectivity Notes for Bangladesh
Two lines is the local norm, and it is good advice. One hundred and ninety million connections for 175 million people is not an accident. Coverage varies by district, promotions vary by operator, and Bangladesh has a documented history of state-ordered mobile restrictions during unrest, most extensively for 22 days between 15 July and 5 August 2024 when 4G was pulled back to 2G nationally. Nothing about that should keep you away, and it is exactly why a second independent line and a folder of downloaded maps and bookings costs you nothing and occasionally saves the day.
Voice still matters more than you expect. WhatsApp is widely used, but Bangladeshi drivers, guesthouse owners and boatmen frequently just ring you, and Uber and Pathao drivers in Dhaka will absolutely call rather than message when they cannot find you in traffic. A data-only eSIM handles the app but not the callback, which is the strongest single argument for a local number on a longer stay.
Download offline maps for the delta and the hills. Sundarbans launch trips lose signal within an hour of the gateway towns, and the ridge roads towards Sajek and Nilgiri drop out for long stretches on any network. No plan, at any price, fixes that.
Check the pack before you assume it is running. Bangladeshi data packs are separate purchases layered on top of a live SIM, not automatic. Dial the balance code the shop gives you and confirm data is flowing before you leave the counter, because sorting it out afterwards means finding somebody who can navigate a Bangla USSD menu.
Budget for slower speeds than the price suggests. Forty megabits per second on a good day is the national average, and central Dhaka at rush hour can be considerably less as the cells fill up. Cheap does not mean fast here. What it does mean is that you can buy an absurd amount of it. For a sense of what daily life on that connection is like, the Dhaka city guide goes district by district.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do foreigners really have to give fingerprints for a Bangladeshi SIM?
Yes. Every mobile line in the country is verified through the Central Biometric Verification Monitoring Platform, and visitors are not exempt; they are simply registered against a passport and visa page instead of the national ID number a resident would use, with fingerprints captured at the counter. The scan takes seconds, the verification round trip is what takes time, and after a busy arrival at Dhaka the total wait commonly runs 30 to 45 minutes. You may register at most two lines against one passport.
How much does a month of mobile data cost in taka?
Absurdly little. Grameenphone sells 30 GB for 30 days at 399 taka, roughly three dollars and twenty-five cents at the August 2026 rate, and 90 GB for 749. Robi does 15 GB over 28 days for 399 with cashback, and Banglalink will sell 2 GB for a week at 36 taka. Add around 200 taka for the SIM itself. Nothing an international eSIM provider sells comes remotely close, which is why the decision here is about time and paperwork rather than money.
Is the Grameenphone Tourist SIM worth buying over a normal prepaid line?
Only if you want the bundled voice minutes or a single simple transaction. The Basic bundle is 999 taka for 7 days with 15 GB, 120 local minutes and some talk time, and the Premium runs 1,999 taka for 30 days. Against that, an ordinary prepaid SIM at about 200 taka plus the 399 taka thirty-gigabyte pack gives you twice the data for a month at well under half the price. Airport staff push the tourist bundles hard, so know the alternative before you reach the counter.
How long will a SIM bought as a visitor keep working?
Tourist numbers are recycled automatically roughly 30 days after activation unless you deactivate them yourself first, and the SIM otherwise stays usable for the length of your visa up to about six months on some arrangements. That is fine for a normal trip and unhelpful if you visit Bangladesh annually and hoped to keep the same number. If you are coming back regularly, ask specifically about a standard prepaid line rather than the tourist product.
Can I get a local eSIM instead of a plastic SIM to avoid the counter?
Not as a visitor. Grameenphone does sell eSIMs, at around 200 taka for a new connection and 99 to convert an existing number, but the know-your-customer rules are identical and operators will not send a QR code to a foreign passport holder by email. You would still be standing at the same counter doing the same fingerprint scan, just walking away with a QR code instead of a card. The only way to skip registration entirely is an international travel eSIM installed before you fly.