Prepaid travel SIM card - FAQ

Prepaid SIM card

The Prepaid SIM card (also called Pay As You Go SIM Card) is the small chip (image) that you insert into your telephone.

Call balance and Top Up voucher

Most of our SIM cards come with a preloaded call balance. You top up your call balance online or with a Top up voucher (depending on destination).

Top Up Vouchers

A Top Up Voucher is a paper note holding a scratch code. These are bought in kiosks and supermarkets in the country where you travel to. When tapping in the code from the voucher, your call balance is topped up with the amount of the value of the Top Up Voucher.

This will automatically top up your call credit by the amount stated on the Top up card. When you're done, you can discard the Top up card since it has been used. The funds added to your call balance can now be used to make outgoing calls and send text messages.

The top up process works in the same way as it does back home.

For many destionations, you can top up on our website together with your order from prepaidsimcard.org. For all destinations top up vouchers can also easily be bought in kiosks and supermarkets in the country you are visiting.

Yes, no problem. Just tick the Micro-SIM checkbox when you order. There is no extra fee for micro-SIM.

Our SIM cards work for GSM telephones that are not locked by a certain operator. If you have a carrier-locked phone - please see the question below in the FAQ.

iPhone4/iPad and a very few other phones, are equipped with a so-called Micro SIM card. We sell both standard size SIM and also Micro SIM. Please specify when you order what type you need, by ticking the microsim-checkbox.

For the US, you need a phone which supports the 850 & 1900 MHZ frequencies (often called the quad band phone). Most phones (except the cheapest) support this if they are less than 5 years old. Should you have an older phone, please check this carefully.

Your phone must not be operator locked. If your phone is operator locked, you can use a spare, non-locked phone that you may have lying around, or unlock the one you have. You may also temporarily borrow an unlocked phone from a friend during your trip.

There are a great number of shops where you can have your phone unlocked (Google this...). It will not cost a fortune and it is entirely legal.
If your fixed contract with your operator has expired, you could also call your operator and have them unlock it for you - sometimes they do it for free.

The safest way is to try it yourself by inserting a SIM card from another operator into your phone. Borrow a SIM from a friend for instance. If your phone then works, it is not operator locked.

Receiving incoming calls are free of charge for most of our destinations. For the few where it's not free, it only costs a low fee as that of a local call.

See the tariffs for each destination »

If your travel partner also uses a SIM card from us, you can make direct calls to each other using the local SIM card numbers stated in our welcome letters.
This way, you can make local cheap calls to each other while travelling.


Without a local SIM card, you will pay international roaming costs both for the calling and the receiving party. The total cost could then well exceed €5/minute for calls dialed between two foreign numbers abroad!

Yes, you can send those just as usual. And it is cheap!
See details for each destination »

Yes, text messages sent to your new SIM card will be received just as normal.

Nope. No membership, no log-in, no password, no downloads or other hassles. Just place your order on our website and pay through our secure e-commerce solution.

Your SIM card will be delivered to you prior to departure, ready to use.

No. We don't apply any monthly fees or subscription charges what so ever. You have no obligations or contract, and you are free to throw away the SIM card when you return.

No, unlike most competitors we do this on your behalf. Be aware that lot's less serious comeptitors to us don't do that, so the first you need to do when arriving is to go through paperwork and activate the SIM card. When you buy a SIM Card from us you never need to worry about registration/activation.

Read all about our fast shipping and delivery here »