Hi,
I am looking for a prepaid sim for use in portugal, spain and france for a week. 10GB is fine. No calls or texts needed.
Whats the best way and best carrier to get this as soon as I land in lisbon ?
Thanks
JP
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If your phone supports eSIMs, Airalo is a good option. Remember though, likely with any solution involving physical pre-paid SIMs, you’ll have to buy a SIM for each country you’ll be transiting through. Ditto for Airalo, you will need to buy an eSIM for each country.
I recently used Airalo for a trip to Turkey, and it worked really well.
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If you get a regular SIM (even prepaid) from any of the main Portuguese networks these will work in Spain and France at no extra cost, too.
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do you need a NIF to get SIM ?
no. its just 8 euros for NOS sim. You can get it at any small stores.
I had a good experience with Orange Holiday e-sim that I set up before I arrived. It was very reasonable, I think 20 EUR for about 2 weeks worth of data and calls. Was great to have phone service as s soon as I landed and not having to find a store, or wait in line at the Vodafone at the airport.
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I had a similar trip last year (Portugal → Spain → France) and ended up testing a few options.
If you buy a local prepaid SIM in Portugal (Vodafone, MEO or NOS), it usually works across the EU without extra roaming charges because of EU roaming rules. So one Portuguese SIM can generally cover Spain and France as well.
That said, for short trips I’ve found eSIM easier. Installing it before the flight means you have data immediately after landing instead of searching for a store at the airport. I’ve tried a few providers like Airalo, Nomad and Skyalo on different trips in Europe and they all worked fine for normal travel usage (maps, messaging, ride apps, etc.).
If you only need data for about a week and around 10 GB, an EU travel eSIM is probably the most convenient option. But if you want a local phone number as well, then a prepaid SIM from Vodafone or MEO in Lisbon might make more sense.
You can buy esim from vodafone/meo online from their portals now as well.
On balance I’ve found vodafone/MEO a bit cheaper, it’s just that the SIM you get isn’t as flexible (e.g. it’s only useful in Europe). I have a SIM from MEO that’s 50GB/1000 minutes for EUR 10/mo. An unlimited sim is like EUR 30 that works across EEA, vs ubigi $48 or airalo $69 that’s Portugal-only.
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