Cuba is the simplest SIM market on this site to describe and one of the more awkward to buy into. ETECSA is the only operator, Cubacel is its only mobile brand, and visitors are steered to a single product called Cubacel Tur. It comes in two sizes. Basic is US$13.99 for 4 GB, 20 minutes and 20 texts over seven days. Plus is US$34.99 for 10 GB, 100 minutes, 100 texts and unlimited WhatsApp and Facebook over thirty days. Both prices come from ETECSA's authorised distributors, since the operator's own visitor page describes the packages without publishing a figure. The awkward part is getting the card: most visitors order online before travelling and collect in person with a passport, because paying at an ETECSA counter is its own problem for anyone holding a US-issued or Western card.
Set against the eSIM, the numbers are one-sided. Nomad, the only big travel eSIM brand selling Cuba, charges US$21 for a single gigabyte and US$69 for five. The tourist card is around three and a half dollars a gigabyte and comes with a +53 number. The eSIM's case here rests on timing and on buying before you leave home, not on price.
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Basic or Plus: Cuba's Two Tourist Packages
ETECSA's visitor page lists two current offers, the Paquete Básico with a seven-day life and the Paquete Básico Plus with a thirty-day life, and confirms that only the Plus includes unlimited WhatsApp and Facebook. Distributors fill in the detail the official page leaves out. Basic carries 4 GB of data, 20 minutes and 20 SMS. Plus carries 10 GB, 100 minutes and 100 SMS. Both put a Cuban +53 number in your phone, which is the thing Nomad cannot do at any price.
| What you buy | Price | Data and extras | Cost per GB |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cubacel Tur Basic | US$13.99 | 4 GB, 20 min, 20 SMS, 7 days | About US$3.50 |
| Cubacel Tur Plus | US$34.99 | 10 GB, 100 min, 100 SMS, unlimited WhatsApp and Facebook, 30 days | About US$3.50 |
| Nomad 1 GB | US$21 | 1 GB, data only, 7 days | US$21.00 |
| Nomad 3 GB | US$49 | 3 GB, data only, 30 days | US$16.33 |
| Nomad 5 GB | US$69 | 5 GB, data only, 30 days | US$13.80 |
The unlimited WhatsApp on Plus is worth more than it looks. In Cuba, WhatsApp is the phone system: casa particular hosts confirm arrivals on it, drivers send their plate number on it, and guides move tour times on it. On Basic those messages draw down your 4 GB. On Plus they cost nothing. For any stay longer than about five days, Plus is the one to order.
A caution on older prices
Cubacel Tur has been repackaged more than once. A January 2025 guide described a single US$25 card with 6 GB, 100 minutes and 100 SMS and a hard thirty-day life. If a distributor is still listing that shape of product, you are probably looking at a stale page. The Basic and Plus structure above matches ETECSA's current visitor page.
Ordering Ahead and Collecting in Person
The standard route is to buy online and pick up on arrival. ETECSA names Dtone, Global Digital and Novela Cuba among its international distributors, and consumer-facing sellers such as Suena Cuba, RecargasaCuba and Cuba Calls resell the same packages. Pickup points are at José Martí in Havana plus the airports at Varadero, Cayo Coco, Camagüey, Holguín and Santiago de Cuba, as well as ETECSA commercial offices around the country.
Order under the exact passport name
The collection desk checks your passport against the order. A missing middle name or a swapped surname is the most common reason a pickup stalls, so copy the name from the passport page, not from your booking.
Check the distributor takes your card
US-issued cards fail inside Cuba, and ETECSA's own offices list UnionPay and Mir as accepted cards. Paying a distributor from home is the dependable way around both problems, but confirm your card clears at checkout rather than assuming it will.
Collect at Hall C in Terminal 3
At José Martí the tourist SIM pickup is after immigration in the baggage area of Hall C, at a stand that distributors describe as open around the clock. Bring the voucher and the passport.
Set the APN if data does not start
Insert the card into an unlocked phone and restart. If mobile data does not come up on its own, set the access point name to nauta. Minutes, texts and data are live straight away.
Buying at a city ETECSA office without a pre-order is possible, but expect a queue, a passport check and a payment desk that may not accept the card in your wallet. That makes a walk-in purchase a fallback, not a plan.
Extra Data, Extensions and the 90-Day Ceiling
Once a Cubacel Tur line is live you can add data but not extra minutes or texts. Distributors list add-on bundles of 10 GB, 20 GB and 50 GB. Suena Cuba prices them at US$20, US$35 and US$70, while another 2026 listing shows US$23.62, US$35.43 and US$70.86 once its fees are included, so prices vary by channel.
| Add-on | Distributor price range | Per GB |
|---|---|---|
| 10 GB | US$20 to US$23.62 | About US$2.00 to US$2.36 |
| 20 GB | US$35 to US$35.43 | About US$1.75 |
| 50 GB | US$70 to US$70.86 | About US$1.40 |
The lifecycle rules are what catch long-stay visitors out. According to ETECSA, repurchasing the seven-day package extends the line by another seven days, repurchasing the thirty-day package extends it by thirty, and no Cubacel Tur line can live beyond ninety days in total. Extra data bundles add gigabytes but do not add days. Someone staying six weeks on a Plus card should buy the second Plus before the first expires rather than stacking data bundles and discovering the line has lapsed.
Why a 50 GB bundle is rarely sensible
Cuban mobile data is fast enough for video calls in Havana on a good day, but most visitors are limited by battery, blackouts and patchy 4G outside the cities long before they exhaust 10 GB. Add data when the counter actually runs low, not on arrival.
Pesos, Dollars and Why Local Pricing Looks Strange
Visitors often read about Cuban data costing a few pesos and wonder why the tourist card is priced in dollars. The answer is that ETECSA runs two economies. Since May 2025, resident lines can load only 360 Cuban pesos of national-currency credit every thirty days. Anything beyond that, including the extra 2 GB plan priced at 1,200 pesos, pushes Cubans toward packages paid in foreign currency, a move residents nicknamed the tarifazo. The Cubacel Tur line sits entirely on the dollar side.
Exchange rates make this murkier. The Banco Central de Cuba launched a floating official rate in December 2025, and by late May 2026 it stood near 507 pesos to the dollar at CADECA windows, with the informal rate tracked by elTOQUE somewhere between 500 and 570. Older fixed rates of 24 and 120 pesos still apply to state transactions, and a foreign card charged at a state outlet can be converted at the 120 rate, which is a terrible deal. A resident peso plan might look like a bargain at the floating rate, but it sits behind a cap and a resident registration, so it is not a realistic route for a visitor.
What this means for your budget
Budget for the tourist card in dollars and pay for it before you travel. Keep pesos for the things priced in pesos, including the Nauta WiFi cards below, and bring enough cash in euros or dollars for the whole trip if you hold a US-issued card.
Nauta Cards and the WIFI_ETECSA Parks
Before mobile data reached most Cubans, the country got online through scratch cards and park hotspots, and that system still runs in 2026. ETECSA sells Nauta cards at 12.50 pesos for 30 minutes, 25 pesos for an hour and 125 pesos for five hours. Scratch off the user name and password, join the WIFI_ETECSA network in a park, plaza or hotel lobby, and log in through the Nauta portal. There are more than 1,245 hotspots across the country, the densest concentration in Havana.
Why a few Nauta cards still earn their space
Why they are no longer the main plan
Buy them at an ETECSA office rather than a hotel desk or a park bench, check the scratch panel is intact before you pay, and keep two or three in your wallet for the day your data runs dry in the middle of Vedado.
When to Carry Nomad Alongside the Tourist Card
In most countries this page would argue for two networks in one handset. In Cuba that argument does not apply, because Nomad connects to Cubacel just as the tourist card does. The case for carrying both rests on four narrower situations.
First, the arrival. José Martí baggage handling is thorough, some travellers report waits of up to three hours, and a working phone in that hall lets you tell a waiting driver or casa host what is happening. Nomad's 1 GB at US$21 is enough for that. Second, cruise calls and very short visits, where collecting a card eats a large share of the time on shore. Third, handsets without a SIM tray, which cannot take Cubacel Tur at all. Fourth, the trip that includes Cuba as one leg of a wider Caribbean itinerary. Airalo and Holafly sell no Cuba plan, so a regional bundle will not cover it, and our guide to an eSIM for a Caribbean island-hopping trip explains how to split the legs.
Buy the eSIM before you leave home
App stores and payment apps are geoblocked in Cuba under US sanctions compliance, and Nomad's app terms include a clause about not using the app from an embargoed country. Purchase and install the Nomad profile at home, and buy the size you think you will need rather than planning to top up from Havana.
For everyone else, the order of operations is simple: pre-order Plus, collect it with your passport, keep a couple of Nauta cards, and let the eSIM Finder check whether your trip is one of the short ones where Nomad on its own is the better call.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I walk into an ETECSA office in Havana and buy Cubacel Tur on the spot?
Sometimes, but it is the harder route. ETECSA's commercial offices do sell and hand over tourist lines, but you will queue, you will need your passport, and the payment desk lists UnionPay and Mir among the cards it accepts, which few Western visitors carry. Cash availability and exact counter pricing vary by office and are not published. Pre-ordering from a distributor at home and collecting the card is far more predictable, and it avoids the US-issued card problem entirely.
Is the unlimited WhatsApp on Cubacel Tur Plus genuinely unlimited?
ETECSA's visitor page describes WhatsApp and Facebook as unlimited on the thirty-day Plus package and says it applies only to that package, not to Basic. We could not find a published fair-use limit. In practice it means the constant stream of voice notes, photos and location pins that Cuban hosts and drivers send does not eat into your 10 GB, which makes the general data allowance last considerably longer than the headline figure suggests.
Will my phone work with a Cubacel card?
It needs to be carrier unlocked and, for 4G, to support band 3 at 1800 MHz, which is where Cubacel launched LTE in 2019 and still carries most of it. Band 1 at 2100 MHz and band 28 at 700 MHz were added in 2023. Most recent international handsets cover all three. A phone sold locked to a home carrier will reject the card at the desk, so check the lock status before you travel, not in Hall C.
How long can I keep a Cubacel Tur number?
No more than ninety days. ETECSA extends a line by seven days each time you repurchase Basic and by thirty days each time you repurchase Plus, but the total life of a tourist line is capped at ninety days, and extra data bundles do not add time. Once the line expires the number is gone. Returning visitors buy a new tourist card each trip rather than trying to keep one alive between visits.
Does a local SIM keep working when the power goes out?
Only if the mast near you has backup power, and the same is true of any eSIM, because Cuba has one mobile network. About half of the roughly 2,520 radio sites have backup, and newer solar units last seven to eight hours. Short scheduled cuts in Havana often pass without losing data. A national grid collapse, like those in March and July 2026, takes much of the network down for a day or more, and no card choice changes that.