Two weeks in Hammamet or Sousse with EE, O2, Vodafone or Three roaming can cost more than the excursions. Tunisia sits outside every UK network's Europe zone, so you pay Rest of World rates — around £8 a day per phone, or per-megabyte charges if you land without a pass. An eSIM with Tunisian data fixes that for less than a night out in the medina — installed before you leave home, working the moment you land at Enfidha, Tunis-Carthage or Monastir.
The full table, with the small print, is in our network-by-network Tunisia roaming guide. Our most popular plan — 10GB for 30 days at £14.99 — covers a typical two-week Tunisia holiday for less than two days of most UK roaming passes. A long weekend in Tunis fits the 3GB plan at £7.99.
The eSIM sits alongside your UK SIM. Your number, WhatsApp and iMessage all keep working exactly as they do at home — messages travel over our data. Turn roaming off on your UK line and nothing can sneak onto a bill. For the full step-by-step dual-SIM setup — which line goes where, and the exact settings on iPhone and Android — see our keep your UK number in Tunisia guide.
You can. Ooredoo, Orange Tunisie and Tunisie Telecom all have counters in the arrivals hall at Tunis-Carthage, and a basic SIM costs about 15–20 dinars plus a data bundle. But Tunisian law requires every SIM to be registered to a passport, so there is a form and a queue after your flight; the counters at Enfidha, Monastir and Djerba keep shorter hours and can be cash-only; and your UK SIM comes out of the phone, so bank codes and calls to your UK number stop until you swap it back. The eSIM gives you local-rate data on the same Tunisian networks without the counter, the form or the swap — and it is bought and installed before you leave the house.
Phones on a UK contract can be network-locked. EE, O2, Vodafone and Three all unlock free of charge — check your network's app or website under "unlock my device", and do it a week before flying to be safe. Phones bought outright, and most contract phones from 2022 onwards, are already unlocked.
Hammamet and Yasmine Hammamet, Sousse and Port El Kantaoui, Monastir and Mahdia, Djerba's beaches, Tunis, Sidi Bou Said and Carthage — and the road south to Tozeur, Douz and the Matmata troglodyte houses. The plan runs on 4G/LTE across the main Tunisian networks; out in the open desert, signal is patchy for everyone, locals' SIMs included, so download the maps for a Sahara day before you set off.
Hotspot and tethering are included, so one eSIM can run the tablets and the kids' phones for maps and messages by the pool. If everyone wants their own data for the whole fortnight, buy one eSIM per phone — the plan finder sizes each one from your trip length and how heavily you use your phone. Anything else — compatibility, hotspots, what happens if you run out — is in the FAQ, and once you are there, the check my data page shows your live balance without an app.