Buy CTM if you are buying a physical SIM in Macau, and bring your passport. The tourist pack that fits almost every visit is CTM's Online Everywhere in Macau prepaid card, at about MOP 78 for three days of unlimited local data or MOP 188 for seven, both bundled with unlimited access to CTM's WiFi network. Two things make Macau different from the SIM market you might expect after Hong Kong. Real-name registration is mandatory here, so a counter assistant scans your passport before the card breathes. And one of the three licensed networks, China Telecom (Macau), has been reported to apply mainland-style content filtering even while you are standing in Macau, which is the opposite of what the rest of the territory does.
What This Guide Covers
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Macau's SIM Market After Two Years of Consolidation
Three companies hold mobile licences in Macau in 2026, and that sentence conceals more than it reveals. SmarTone stopped providing mobile service in Macau on 11 November 2024, forfeited its 4G licence and moved its customers across to CTM. Fourteen months later, in January 2026, CK Hutchison sold the operating company behind the 3 Macau brand to CTM for a headline 10 million patacas, part of a transaction reported at HKD 110 million in total. Three Macau still sells under its own name on its own separate licence, and nearly ninety of its staff stayed on, but the group answering for it is now the incumbent.
So the shelf in front of you holds one operator that carries the overwhelming bulk of Macau's traffic, a second brand that belongs to the same group, and a third that is the local arm of a mainland giant. CTM reports more than 1.6 million mobile subscribers against a resident population under 690,000, which is what happens when a place of 33 square kilometres takes 40.06 million visitor arrivals in a single year. Most Macau SIM cards in circulation are tourist cards.
Your passport comes out here, and that is not true across the water
Macau requires real-name registration on every prepaid mobile line. You hand over a passport or an original ID, the assistant records it, and only then does the card activate. It takes a few minutes at a staffed CTM counter and there is no way around it. Travellers who bought a card in Hong Kong the day before, where no registration rule exists at all, are often surprised. It also means the anonymous street-stall purchase is not a thing here, and that self-service vending machines are tied to a registration step rather than being a way to dodge one.
CTM
CTM: The Network Macau Actually Runs On
Unlimited three and seven day tourist packs, and the strongest indoor coverage in the territory
CTM is the default and it is not close. Its 5G licence commitments include 90 percent indoor coverage, which is the number that matters in a city where a typical day means walking from a hotel lobby into a casino floor into a covered shopping canal and out to a bus stop without ever spending twenty minutes under open sky. It is also the only Macau operator that opened 5G to prepaid customers rather than reserving the faster layer for contract subscribers, so a tourist pack here genuinely gets you the good network.
The Online Everywhere pack is priced for exactly the trips Macau receives. MOP 78 covers three days, which is roughly USD 10, and MOP 188 covers a week at around USD 23. Both are unlimited on local mobile data and both throw in CTM's WiFi network, which is worth more here than it sounds because CTM hotspots turn up in a lot of the places you sit down. The weakness is simple arithmetic: an equivalent travel eSIM for a weekend costs a fraction of the seven day pack, and you do not queue for it.
Strengths
Weaknesses
3 Macau
3 Macau: The Cheap Card, and the Cross-Border One
Small metered packs in patacas, plus a three day pass that covers Macau, Hong Kong and the mainland
Three is where the pataca prices get genuinely cheap. Around MOP 48 buys 2 GB on 30 days and MOP 88 buys 4 GB, which is a different proposition from CTM's unlimited-but-brief tourist packs and better suited to someone staying a fortnight who mostly lives on hotel WiFi. Coverage is comfortable across Cotai and the newer reclaimed land where the big resorts sit, and it thins a little relative to CTM once you are deep inside older peninsula buildings.
The genuinely interesting product is the MOP 78 three day pass that bundles Macau, Hong Kong and mainland China data with some local voice minutes. That single card answers the question this region keeps asking travellers: what do I do about the fact that Macau, Hong Kong and Zhuhai are three separate telecom zones sitting within an hour of each other. It is the cheapest local answer to a day trip over the Border Gate, and worth remembering even if your main plan is an eSIM. Note that since the January 2026 sale, the brand now sits inside CTM's group while keeping its own licence.
Strengths
Weaknesses
China Telecom (Macau), and Why We Steer Around It
The third licence belongs to China Telecom (Macau), the local arm of one of the mainland's three state operators. Technically there is nothing wrong with it. It runs 5G on the same 3500 MHz band the others launched in November 2022, its signal across the peninsula and Taipa is perfectly serviceable, and its shops are easy enough to find. The problem is a policy one, and it is the single most Macau-specific thing on this page.
The one local network reported to filter what Macau otherwise lets through
Macau has no territory-wide firewall. Google, Gmail, Maps, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook all load normally on a Macau network, no VPN, no workaround. China Telecom (Macau) is the documented exception: its SIMs have been reported to enforce mainland-style blocking on subscribers even while they are physically inside Macau. In other words, you can be standing in Senado Square, on a legally unfiltered internet, and still find Google unreachable, purely because of the card in your phone. If open access is part of why you chose a Macau plan, this is the brand to walk past.
There is one narrow case where it makes sense. If your trip is really a Zhuhai trip with a Macau airport arrival attached, and you expect to spend most of your days on the mainland side of the Border Gate anyway, a China Telecom (Macau) card behaves consistently across the line and its cross-border tariffs are competitive. That is a genuine use case, and it is a small one. For anybody whose Macau is the Historic Centre, the Cotai Strip and a ferry back to Hong Kong, take CTM or 3 Macau instead, or skip the counter entirely with a travel eSIM that names CTM, which is what both Holafly and Nomad do.
Macau Prepaid SIM Plans Compared
| Card | Data | Validity | Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CTM Online Everywhere | Unlimited + CTM WiFi | 3 days | ~MOP 78 (~USD 10) | A weekend off the ferry |
| CTM Online Everywhere | Unlimited + CTM WiFi | 7 days | ~MOP 188 (~USD 23) | A full week, one card |
| 3 Macau prepaid | 2 GB | 30 days | ~MOP 48 (~USD 6) | Light use over a long stay |
| 3 Macau prepaid | 4 GB | 30 days | ~MOP 88 (~USD 11) | Best pataca value per gigabyte |
| 3 Macau cross-border pass | Macau, Hong Kong and mainland data | 3 days | ~MOP 78 (~USD 10) | A Zhuhai or Hong Kong day trip |
| China Telecom (Macau) | Local and cross-border bundles | Varies | Competitive | Trips spent mostly on the mainland |
Those are typical 2026 counter prices. The pattern is that CTM sells time and 3 Macau sells volume, which is a useful way to choose: if your Macau is two intense days of navigation and photos, buy the three day unlimited pack; if it is ten quiet days where you mostly sit on resort WiFi and want a safety net outdoors, buy 4 GB and forget about it. The cross-border pass is the outlier and exists to solve a geography problem rather than a data problem.
Where to Buy a SIM Card in Macau
CTM shops and staffed counters
The most reliable route, and the one that gets your passport registered properly the first time. CTM has retail across the peninsula and in Taipa, and staff will load the right tourist pack, complete the registration and confirm data is flowing before you leave. Budget a few minutes for the ID step.
Macau International Airport
There is a CTM vending machine in the arrival hall taking cash and card, and a 7-Eleven on the departures landside level, open roughly 08:00 to 21:00, that sells Three cards. Airport retail here generally closes somewhere between ten at night and midnight, which matters at an airport that keeps taking late arrivals.
Convenience stores and border machines
7-Eleven and Circle K branches across the territory stock prepaid cards and vouchers, and there are vending machines at the Border Gate checkpoint and at the ferry terminal. This is the fastest option if you have arrived by bridge or boat rather than by air.
Register, activate, then test before you walk off
Because registration is a legal requirement rather than a formality, do not leave the counter until the line is live. Load a map, send one message, and check you are on the network you paid for. Sorting a dud card is much harder from a bus stop in Coloane than from the shop you bought it in.
Pay in patacas, not Hong Kong dollars
The pataca is pegged to the Hong Kong dollar at roughly MOP 103 to HKD 100, and because the Hong Kong dollar is in turn pegged to the US dollar at about 7.8, somewhere near MOP 8 buys one US dollar. Hong Kong dollars are accepted almost everywhere in Macau, which is convenient and quietly expensive: shops take them one for one against the pataca, so you hand over about three percent more than you owe and any change comes back in patacas anyway. On a MOP 188 SIM the loss is trivial. Across a weekend of taxis, egg tarts, bus fares and ferry tickets it stops being trivial, so draw patacas from an ATM and keep the Hong Kong notes for the ride home.
eSIM or a Local Card for a Macau Trip
| Factor | Travel eSIM | Local Macau SIM |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Installed at home, live on landing | Counter visit, then activation |
| Passport registration | Not required of you | Mandatory, ID scanned before activation |
| Cost for a weekend | About USD 4 to 10 | MOP 78 for 3 days unlimited |
| Content filtering | Open on CTM-based plans | Open on CTM and 3, filtered on China Telecom (Macau) |
| Crossing to Zhuhai | Needs a separate mainland plan | Only the cross-border passes carry over |
| Local number | No | Yes, useful for booking desks and drivers |
Macau tilts toward the eSIM more strongly than Hong Kong does, and the passport rule is the reason. In Hong Kong you can buy a card off a shelf and be running in two minutes with nobody asking who you are, which makes the local option genuinely competitive. Here you queue, hand over a document and wait for a registration to clear, all while jet-lagged or fresh off a ferry. A travel eSIM on CTM gives you the same network with none of that. The local card still wins if you want a Macau number for calling a restaurant on Rua do Cunha or confirming a tour pickup, or if you are staying long enough that MOP 88 for 4 GB across a month beats anything sold online.
One more thing the table cannot capture. A local card is bought inside Macau, which means you are offline for the walk between the aircraft door and the counter, and Macau is a place where that walk can end at a taxi queue at one in the morning after a late flight from Bangkok. Full detail on that arrival sequence is on our Macau eSIM guide.
Macau-Specific Connectivity Tips
Things worth knowing before you buy anything
Skip China Telecom (Macau) if the open internet is the point: it is the only local network reported to filter content on its own subscribers while they are inside Macau, which undoes the main advantage of being here rather than across the border.
The resorts are half your data plan: every major Cotai and peninsula property runs free WiFi across its floors, so if your days are spent between a hotel, a casino and a shopping canal, your cellular usage will be far lower than you budgeted for.
Use FreeWiFi.MO for the gaps: the government free WiFi service covers roughly 280 public locations, needs no registration, and gives 60 minutes per session. It is the bridge between resort networks when you are out walking the Historic Centre.
Keep MOP 6 coins for the bus: Macau buses charge a flat MOP 6 and give no change, so a pocket of coins saves an awkward moment. On the LRT a stored-value card roughly halves the fare, taking a short hop from MOP 6 down to MOP 3.
Treat Zhuhai as a different country for data purposes: nothing about a standard Macau card follows you over the Border Gate except a roaming bill. If a mainland day trip is likely, buy the 3 Macau cross-border pass before you go rather than improvising at the checkpoint.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I just grab a Macau SIM off a shelf, or is registration really enforced?
It is enforced. Macau law requires real-name registration on every prepaid mobile line, so your passport or original ID is recorded before the card will activate, and self-service vending machines are tied to that step rather than a way around it. The process is quick, usually a few minutes at a CTM counter, but it is a genuine difference from Hong Kong, where prepaid cards carry no registration requirement at all. A travel eSIM removes the step for you entirely.
Which Macau carrier should I steer clear of, and what is wrong with it?
China Telecom (Macau). Nothing is wrong with its signal or its pricing, but its SIMs have been reported to apply mainland-style content blocking to their own subscribers even while those subscribers are physically inside Macau. Since Macau itself runs an unfiltered internet, that single choice can hand you the restrictions you came here to avoid. CTM and 3 Macau both behave normally. The exception is a trip spent mostly across the border, where consistent mainland behaviour is arguably a feature.
What does a tourist SIM actually cost in Macau?
CTM's Online Everywhere pack runs about MOP 78 for three days of unlimited local data or MOP 188 for seven, which is roughly USD 10 and USD 23, and both include unlimited access to CTM's WiFi network. Three sells metered instead: around MOP 48 for 2 GB and MOP 88 for 4 GB, each on 30 days. There is also a MOP 78 three day pass from Three that stretches across Macau, Hong Kong and mainland China.
Can I pay for a SIM card in Hong Kong dollars?
Yes, almost every shop in Macau takes them, but you lose a little every time. The pataca is pegged to the Hong Kong dollar at roughly MOP 103 to HKD 100, yet shops treat the two as equal at the till, so paying in Hong Kong dollars costs you about three percent and your change comes back in patacas regardless. On one SIM card the difference is pennies. Spread across taxis, ferry tickets and meals over a weekend it is worth drawing patacas instead.
For two nights on the Cotai Strip, is a local card or a travel eSIM the better buy?
A travel eSIM, in most cases. You will pay somewhere around USD 4 to 10 for enough data, arrive already connected, and skip the passport registration queue at a counter, all while riding CTM if you pick a plan that names it. The local card earns its place when you want a Macau number to call a restaurant or a tour desk, or when you are staying long enough that MOP 88 for 4 GB across a month beats anything sold online.