Nobody sells a travel eSIM for Eritrea, and in 2026 there is no mobile data for a visitor to buy locally either. EriTel, the state corporation that is the country's only telecom operator, says plainly on its own mobile services page that its GSM platform currently provides voice services only. A visitor can get a temporary EriTel SIM, but only with a host organisation doing the paperwork, or, for tourists, with a letter of recommendation from the Ministry of Tourism, and what that SIM gives you is calls and texts inside Eritrea, not internet. Getting online means hotel WiFi and a handful of internet cafes in Asmara, Keren and Massawa, all running on slow fixed lines. So the realistic goal is a working local phone number plus a trip planned around being offline, rather than a hunt for a data plan that does not exist.
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Getting Online in Eritrea
No travel eSIM provider currently sells a plan for Eritrea, so the realistic options are a local SIM on arrival, roaming from your home carrier, or satellite.
A local SIM on arrival
EriTel is the only operator, and foreign visitors have historically found prepaid data hard to obtain at all.
Assume you will be offline for most of the trip. This is the least connected country on this site.
Satellite, if you need to stay reachable
Cellular coverage in Eritrea stops well short of where visitors go. A satellite communicator is the only thing that works everywhere, and it is what most people who travel here regularly carry.
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One company runs everything. EriTel, the Eritrea Telecommunications Corporation, describes itself as the only communications service provider in the State of Eritrea, and that is literally true: it owns the fixed lines, the CDMA fixed wireless service, the broadband, the VSAT links and the only mobile network. It began life as Telecommunications Services of Eritrea, which is why its email addresses still end in tse.com.er, and it was restructured in October 2003, after which GSM mobile service was introduced. Its history page claims mobile coverage across 85 percent of the country. There is no second operator, no reseller, and no wholesale market that an international eSIM company could plug into, which is the real reason none of them list Eritrea.
The network carries voice, not data. EriTel's Mobile GSM Services page carries a note that reads, in full, that it currently provides only voice services on its mobile GSM platform. The UK Foreign Office says the same thing from the visitor's side: there is no 3G in the country, and international SIM cards do not work in Eritrea. A few third-party guides published in 2025 talk about 3G or limited 4G trials around Asmara. We could not find any data product, data tariff or APN setting on EriTel's own site, so treat those reports as unconfirmed until EriTel itself publishes a price for mobile data.
The guest SIM, and how you actually get one. EriTel publishes a form for visitors, Form 601, titled SIM Card Subscription Contract for Guests. Its conditions are specific. A guest subscription lasts at most 60 days and can be extended by 30 or 60 days on formal request, at 50 percent of the original payment. The host must take responsibility for processing the purchase. Tourists need a letter of recommendation from the Ministry of Tourism addressed to EriTel. The form itself asks for your passport number, your exact dates, the company or organisation representing you in Eritrea, your hotel and its phone number, and the purpose of your visit, and it is signed off by three EriTel staff, a preparer, a checker and an approver. You also sign a declaration that you will return the SIM to EriTel at the end and obtain a clearance. Eritreans visiting from abroad can skip the host and buy directly with their passport and Eritrean ID. The Foreign Office separately notes that local SIMs normally require a residence permit, which takes weeks, so the guest contract is the faster route, not a quick one.
What it costs. EriTel's published schedule charges expatriates 633 nakfa for a new SIM card, against 550 for Eritrean nationals, and 488 nakfa for a replacement. Calls cost 1.50 nakfa a minute to other EriTel mobiles and 1.80 to fixed and CDMA lines; a domestic SMS is 0.50 nakfa and an international one 5. Direct international calls to Saudi Arabia, the UK, Italy, the USA, Canada, the UAE, Sudan, Norway and France cost 10 nakfa a minute at peak and 7 off peak, and every other country 13 and 12. Credit comes on scratch cards of 110 and 330 nakfa, loaded with *141* followed by the card number and #. At the official rate of roughly 15 nakfa to the US dollar, the guest SIM alone is about 42 dollars before you have made a call.
Where the internet actually lives. Everything a visitor uses online comes off EriTel's fixed network. Its ADSL Silver packages, sold monthly in Asmara, Keren and Massawa, give 1 GB for 1,000 nakfa, 3 GB for 2,500, 10 GB for 4,000 and 25 GB for 8,000, on a shared line of about 1 Mbps. There are unlimited night packages that only run from 9pm to 7am, from 500 nakfa at 512 kbps up to 4,000 nakfa at 6 Mbps, and weekend versions running from Friday night to Monday morning. Dedicated bandwidth is priced per kilobit: a single dedicated megabit costs close to 25,000 nakfa a month including tax. Those are the lines your hotel and the local internet cafe are sharing among their guests, which explains the speeds. EriTel also runs a long-range WiFi service for business subscribers in Asmara, Serejeka, Mai Nefhi, Debarwa, Adi Quala, Massawa, Segeneiti, Nakfa, Keren and Hamelmalo.
About the 50 MB Eritrea eSIMs you might see
Comparison sites list two products that name Eritrea: a Roamify plan of 50 MB over 30 days for 25 dollars, and an Orange Travel world zone plan of 50 MB for 35.99 dollars. Roamify's own Eritrea page is live and quotes the 25 dollar price. We could not confirm that either one connects. Both would depend on roaming data across EriTel, whose own site says its mobile network carries voice only, and the Foreign Office says foreign SIMs do not work at all. Do not rely on one. If you buy it as an experiment, assume the money is gone.
Coverage Across Eritrea
Coverage where travelers actually go:
| Area | Coverage | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Asmara | Voice plus hotel WiFi | EriTel's best-served city, with fixed broadband, the main hotels and most of the internet cafes. Expect calls to work across the modernist centre and WiFi only indoors at hotels and cafes. |
| Massawa and the Red Sea coast | Voice, some WiFi | Massawa has a fibre core and ADSL service, so the port town and the larger hotels on Taulud island can get online. Along the coast north and south, assume voice at best. |
| Keren | Voice, some WiFi | Eritrea's second highland town is on the ADSL map and on EriTel's business WiFi list. Fine for calls; internet is a hotel or cafe errand, not something you carry around. |
| Asmara to Massawa escarpment road | Patchy voice | The road drops roughly 2,300 metres through Nefasit and Ghinda in about 115 km of bends. Signal comes and goes with the terrain, and you also need a travel permit to be on it. |
| Dahlak Archipelago | Assume none | The islands off Massawa are reached by boat with a separate permit. Treat any trip there as fully offline and tell people before you go. |
| Southern highlands and border zones | Not advised | Adi Keyh, Qohaito and Senafe sit close to the Ethiopian frontier. The UK advises against all travel within 25 km of every Eritrean land border, so coverage there is not the question. |
How to Prepare
With no plan to buy, the useful decisions are about paperwork, timing and expectations. Take them in roughly this order.
Settle who your host is before you apply for anything. Every route into an EriTel guest SIM runs through somebody in Eritrea. For an NGO worker, a contractor or a diplomat, that is the organisation that sponsored the visa, and it is the name that goes in the representative company box on Form 601. For a tourist, it is in practice the tour operator handling your visa and permits, because the Ministry of Tourism letter that EriTel requires is a document they know how to request and you, arriving cold, do not. Ask them in writing, before you fly, whether they will arrange the SIM and roughly when it will be ready. Expat accounts describe waits measured in days to weeks, so on a short trip the answer may simply be no.
Line the SIM up with your travel permits. Foreign visitors need a permit for any travel outside Zoba Maekel, the central region around Asmara, and the Foreign Office notes that applications can take several days and are not always approved, with checkpoints on the roads out of the capital. The same host is usually handling both, and the permit has a direct bearing on your phone: if you are heading down to Massawa or up to Keren, you will be on patchy voice coverage at best and the guide or driver's number is your lifeline. Make sure you have it in writing and on paper.
Build an offline phone. Before departure, save offline maps covering Asmara, the Massawa road and anywhere your permit allows. Download a Tigrinya phrase pack and an Arabic one; Italian is also understood by older Asmarinos. Put your visa approval, permits, hotel bookings and return ticket on the device as files, and print a second set. Fill the phone with whatever you would otherwise stream. Anything that needs a login and an internet connection to open, such as a corporate VPN, a cloud document or an authenticator that only syncs online, should be tested against a dead connection at home first.
Plan your online time around the hotel line. Treat the hotel WiFi as a few windows a day for email and messages, not as an office. Night packages on EriTel's fixed network run from 9pm, so a late evening or early morning session is often the least contested time on a shared line. If you are working in Eritrea for weeks, it can make sense for your organisation to subscribe to an ADSL Silver package for its office, priced in nakfa per gigabyte, rather than living on hotel bandwidth. Leave satellite phones and portable satellite internet terminals at home unless your host has secured explicit written clearance; we found no published rule that allows a visitor to bring one.
Carry cash and keep your receipts. The guest SIM, scratch cards and any cafe time are paid in nakfa. Foreign currency should be exchanged at Himbol, the state exchange, or spent at an official hotel, and the Foreign Office warns that failing to account for foreign currency you brought in can lead to delays, fines or prosecution. You may not take more than 1,000 nakfa out of the country. Keep every exchange slip until you have cleared departure.
Mind where you point the camera. Photographing government buildings and military installations is illegal, and the tank graveyard on the edge of Asmara needs a permit from the Ministry of Tourism. If security staff are anywhere in view, ask before you shoot. And tell family and colleagues before you leave that a few days without contact is normal here, not a cause for alarm.
Internet Restrictions in Eritrea
A working data connection is not the same as a working internet connection. In Eritrea, most of the modern web, where a connection exists at all are filtered or blocked.
What this means in practice
Mobile data is minimal and internet access is among the most restricted in the world. Plan on being effectively offline rather than on working around it.
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Is there any way to get mobile data on a phone in Eritrea?
Not reliably, and not legally through anything we can recommend. EriTel's own mobile services page says its GSM network currently provides voice only, and the UK Foreign Office says there is no 3G in the country. Some third-party guides mention 3G or 4G trials in Asmara, but EriTel publishes no data tariff, so there is nothing to sign up for. In practice your phone does its internet over hotel or cafe WiFi, and the mobile network is for calls and texts.
What paperwork does a tourist need for an EriTel SIM card?
More than you would expect. EriTel's guest contract, Form 601, requires a host to take responsibility for the purchase, and for tourists the Ministry of Tourism must write a letter of recommendation to EriTel. The form records your passport number, dates of stay, the organisation representing you, your hotel and your reason for visiting. The SIM costs 633 nakfa for expatriates, is valid for up to 60 days, can be extended at half price, and must be handed back to EriTel for a clearance when you leave. Your tour operator is the person to ask.
Will my own phone roam in Eritrea if I do nothing?
Do not count on it. The UK Foreign Office states that international SIM cards do not work in Eritrea, and even where a roaming agreement exists for voice, there is no mobile data network to roam onto. Some home carriers list Eritrea on their roaming pages, so check yours, but treat any call or text that gets through as a bonus. A few niche eSIM sellers list 50 MB Eritrea plans for 25 to 36 dollars; we could not confirm they connect and would not spend money on one.
Where do people actually get online in Asmara?
Hotel WiFi first, then a small number of internet cafes, which is how the Foreign Office describes it too. Both run on EriTel fixed broadband, where a shared ADSL line is about 1 Mbps and a dedicated megabit costs close to 25,000 nakfa a month, so a dozen guests on one hotel connection will feel it. Email, messaging and light browsing work; video calls and large uploads usually do not. The quietest time is late at night, when EriTel's night packages kick in and fewer people are online.
Do WhatsApp and other messaging apps work there?
Over WiFi, generally yes. EriTel states that it officially supports WhatsApp, WeChat, Skype and Echo Chat, and those are the apps residents use to stay in touch with family abroad. They only work where there is an internet connection, though, which means the hotel or the cafe, not the street, because the mobile network has no data. Eritrea sits at or near the bottom of international press freedom rankings, so assume the connection is not private and keep sensitive conversations for after you leave.
Can I come in overland from Ethiopia and keep using my Ethiopian SIM?
Neither part of that works. The land crossings that opened briefly in 2018 did not stay open, and the UK advises against all travel within 25 km of Eritrea's land borders, so the practical way in is by air to Asmara. An Ethiopian SIM will not work inside Eritrea, in line with the Foreign Office warning about foreign SIMs. If your trip includes Ethiopia, our Ethiopia eSIM guide covers that leg, where travel eSIMs do work.