French Guiana is the rare destination where the best-value local plan is closed to most of the people reading this page, and where a large share of visitors do not need a local card at all. The cheapest mobile deal in the territory is Free Caraibe's 150 GB for 9.99 euros a month, and its own June 2026 contract summary reserves it for people who live in the region or can show a stable link to it. Meanwhile anyone holding a contract from an EU country already roams here on home terms, because this is an outermost region of the Union. That leaves a narrower group for whom a Guianese SIM is the real question: visitors from the Americas and the UK, long-stay workers, and anyone heading up the rivers where Orange is the network that reaches furthest. For them the local numbers are fair rather than dramatic. Orange Caraibe's 15 euro internet recharge gives 10 GB for thirty days, which lands close to what a travel eSIM charges once the starter card is added, so the decision here is about coverage and paperwork more than price.
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Four Brands on Three Grids
The operator landscape is easier to read once you know which brands share infrastructure. Orange Caraibe is the incumbent across the French Antilles and Guiana, and in this territory it is the operator most often credited with the widest footprint, including in interior communes. Its own deployment page lists 203 4G sites and 30 5G sites in service as of April 2025, with 5G in Cayenne, Remire-Montjoly, Matoury, Macouria, Kourou and Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, and the company has announced 4G at Kaw, Camopi, Grand-Santi and Maripasoula. SFR Caraibe operates its own separate network, strong along the coast. Digicel and Free Caraibe are best understood as a pair: in 2020 they formed Madiacom, a RAN-sharing company that took over Digicel's mobile network, and Free launched its retail service on that shared grid in May 2022.
Dead zones are also being chipped away. A coverage programme has installed, or is installing, 15 masts across eleven communes: Camopi, Maripasoula, Papaichton, Grand-Santi, Apatou, Saul, Saint-Elie, Regina, Mana, Montsinery-Tonnegrande and Roura. Those masts improve the settlements themselves. They do not light up the river and forest between them, which remain silent on every brand.
Choosing a brand by itinerary
For Cayenne, Remire-Montjoly, Kourou and the coast road, any of the four is fine and the decision is about price. For Saint-Laurent and a pirogue trip up the Maroni, or for time in Maripasoula, Grand-Santi or Camopi, pick Orange, since it is the operator that has invested most in those places. If you are buying a travel eSIM instead, note that the three major eSIM brands use Digicel, and Nomad adds SFR Caraibe, so none of them gives you Orange's interior reach.
Local Prices in Euros, Next to the eSIMs
The euro is the currency here, and prices below come from each operator's own published material where we could find it. The Digicel figures come from its October 2023 prepaid guide, the latest detailed version we could locate, because its 2026 online store only lists contract plans, so treat those as indicative.
| Option | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Orange Caraibe internet recharge | 3 euros | 1 GB, 10 days, usable locally and in Europe and the DROM |
| Orange Caraibe internet recharge | 5 euros | 2 GB, 10 days |
| Orange Caraibe internet recharge | 15 euros | 10 GB, 30 days |
| Orange Caraibe internet recharge | 50 euros | 40 GB, 60 days |
| Orange Caraibe Recharge Max | 20 euros | 5 GB plus unlimited local and mainland calls, local zone only |
| Digicel Quick Pick (2023 guide) | 25 euros | 10 GB, 30 days, with local calls and texts |
| Starter SIM, any operator | About 10 to 25 euros reported | The line itself, activated against ID |
| Free Caraibe 150 Go | 9.99 euros a month plus 10 euro SIM | 150 GB, residents or stable local link only |
| Nomad eSIM | 19 dollars, about 16 euros | 10 GB, 30 days, Digicel and SFR Caraibe |
| Airalo eSIM | 13 dollars, about 11 euros | 5 GB, 30 days, Digicel |
Put side by side, a first month on Orange costs somewhere around 25 to 40 euros once the starter card and a 10 GB recharge are added together, while Nomad's 10 GB month is about 16 euros and Airalo's 5 GB month about 11. That is a reversal of the pattern in much of Central America and the Caribbean, where a tourist SIM routinely undercuts every eSIM by several times. French consumer pricing sets a higher floor on local prepaid, and the eSIM wholesale rate for this territory is reasonable.
Where the local card pulls ahead is duration. A second and third month on Orange is just another 15 euro recharge, and the 50 euro, 40 GB recharge lasts sixty days. Anyone here for a season rather than a holiday will come out ahead locally by the second month.
The 9.99 Euro Plan You Probably Cannot Sign Up For
Free Caraibe arrived in 2022 promising prices several times lower than the incumbents, and it kept that promise. Its brochure effective 30 June 2026 lists a 150 GB plan at 9.99 euros a month and a 300 GB plan at 15.99, each with a 10 euro charge for the SIM or eSIM, no commitment, and cancellation online with ten days' notice. The 300 GB plan even bundles 35 GB of data from 75 destinations abroad, a list that includes Brazil, mainland France and much of Europe.
The catch is one sentence in the contract summary: the offer is reserved for subscribers who live in the local zone or can justify a stable link with it. It is also billed monthly as a subscription, not sold as a scratch-card prepaid pack. A tourist on a ten-day trip is plainly not the customer it was designed for, and trying to use it as a travel SIM means signing a French mobile contract you intend to break.
Who can reasonably use Free Caraibe
People relocating to French Guiana for work, including the steady stream of engineers and contractors posted to the space centre in Kourou, students and researchers on long placements, and anyone with a local address. For them it is excellent value, and because Free rides the shared Madiacom grid it has the same coastal coverage as Digicel. Remember that the shared grid covered 87.3 percent of the population but only 2.6 percent of the land area in 2023, so it is a coastal service first.
Mainland French plans are a separate case. Several metropolitan operators include a data allowance for use in the overseas departments, commonly in the 32 to 35 GB range, with SFR selling an 80 GB variant, and calls and texts between the mainland and the DOM have carried no surcharge since the loi Lurel took effect in May 2016.
Already Carrying a European SIM? Check Before You Buy Anything
A good share of visitors land at Felix Eboue on an Air France or Air Caraibes flight from Paris, and many of them hold contracts from EU countries. For that group the local SIM question is largely moot. The BEREC guidelines on Regulation 2022/612, the rulebook for EU roaming, state that it applies to communications made and received within the Union including the outermost regions, and French Guiana is one of them. That puts it in a different legal category from French Polynesia or New Caledonia, which are overseas territories outside the Union.
Confirming your own SIM will work
1. Open your operator's roaming page and find its EU or Zone 1 country list. Look for French Guiana, or Guyane, by name.
2. Check the fair-use allowance for roaming data on your plan, which can be smaller than your domestic allowance on large or unlimited plans.
3. If you hold a French mainland plan, find the separate DOM allowance, which is usually stated as a fixed monthly volume.
4. Before landing, make sure data roaming is switched on for that line.
5. If your allowance is too small for the trip, add a small eSIM for the balance rather than a local card.
Two groups should not assume they are covered. British contracts left the regulation with Brexit, so any Europe inclusion is at the operator's discretion. And travellers crossing to Suriname at Saint-Laurent or to Brazil over the Oyapock bridge leave the EU the moment they do, so a European SIM stops being cheap on the far bank, and near the rivers it is worth keeping an eye on which network your phone has registered to.
Buying and Topping Up a Line on the Ground
Operator boutiques in Cayenne are the dependable place to buy a line, and travellers also report SIM sales at Felix Eboue airport in Matoury, though we could not confirm which counters are staffed on a given day. Digicel's own guide claimed 54 points of sale and 120 sales advisers across its French Antilles and Guiana market, so its shops are not hard to find in the main towns. Bring a passport or national identity card, because a French prepaid line has to be activated against an identity document.
Recharging once you have the card
Orange Caraibe lets you add recharges from your customer account, in the Orange et Moi Caraibe app, by dialling #124#, or from the page that appears when your data runs out. Pick the right recharge family for the trip. The internet recharges at 3, 5, 15 and 50 euros work in the local zone, Europe and the other overseas departments. The Recharge Max bundles at 10, 15 and 20 euros add unlimited calls but their data only works in the local zone. The classic credit recharges from 5 to 50 euros come with bonus data, from 50 MB at the bottom to 10 GB on a 50 euro top-up. Flash recharges of any amount from 5 to 100 euros are sold only through authorised retailers.
Top up before leaving the coast. A pirogue trip up the Maroni from Saint-Laurent, a flight to Saul or a night in the Kaw marshes all take you somewhere you cannot reach a shop, and in several of those places you will not have the signal to recharge by app either. The same applies to the Iles du Salut, where the network is patchy enough that the inn on Ile Royale cannot promise to take cards.
Matching the Option to the Trip
Because the prices are close, the split here is about where you are going and how long you are staying.
A local line makes sense when
An eSIM makes sense when
If you go the eSIM route, the French Guiana eSIM guide lists verified prices for all three providers, and the Cayenne airport guide explains how to use the terminal's one-hour free WiFi to finish an installation. The eSIM Finder will size a plan to your dates, and the Holafly review covers when unlimited is worth it for a launch trip. EU visitors weighing their own roaming against a local card may also want the France eSIM guide for the mainland leg of the journey.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a tourist sign up for Free Caraibe's cheap plan?
Not in good faith. Free Caraibe's contract summary dated 30 June 2026 reserves its 150 GB and 300 GB plans for subscribers who live in the local zone or can justify a stable link with it, and they are monthly subscriptions rather than prepaid packs. The 9.99 euro price is real, and so is the 10 euro SIM charge, but a short-stay visitor is not the intended customer. People moving to French Guiana for work or study are, and for them it is the best value in the territory.
What does Orange Caraibe charge for data on a prepaid line?
Its internet recharges are 3 euros for 1 GB over ten days, 5 euros for 2 GB over ten days, 15 euros for 10 GB over thirty days and 50 euros for 40 GB over sixty days, and they work locally as well as in Europe and the other overseas departments. On top of that you need the starter card, which travellers report at roughly 10 to 25 euros, and an identity document to activate it. Recharges can be added by app, online, or by dialling #124#.
I have a Belgian phone plan. Is a French Guiana SIM worth buying?
Probably not. French Guiana is an EU outermost region, and the EU roaming rules cover those regions, so your Belgian plan should work at home rates subject to its fair-use limits. Check that your operator's EU zone list names French Guiana, and check the roaming data cap on your plan. Only if that cap is too small for your trip, or you are heading into the interior where Orange coverage matters, does a local card start to make sense.
Which network should I use for a pirogue trip up the Maroni?
Orange Caraibe, as far as any network helps. It has brought 4G to Grand-Santi and Maripasoula and is widely regarded as the operator with the best interior footprint. Be realistic about what that means: the settlements get service, the river between them does not, and nothing reaches deep forest. Recharge before leaving Saint-Laurent, download offline maps, and for multi-day trips carry a satellite messenger rather than relying on any SIM.
Is an eSIM really cheaper than a local SIM here?
For a short trip, slightly, which surprises people used to Caribbean tourist SIMs. Nomad's 10 GB month is 19 dollars, about 16 euros, and Airalo's 5 GB month is 13 dollars. A local Orange line needs a starter card plus a 15 euro recharge for 10 GB, so a first month usually costs more. From the second month the local card wins, because each further 10 GB is only another 15 euro recharge with no new SIM to buy.