Best eSIM for the USA from the UK: roaming passes, America SIM cards and eSIMs compared
In short
The best eSIM for the USA depends first on what your UK network charges there. EE’s pass costs £26.50 for 7 days, Sky £2 per 24 hours and Tesco Mobile 1p a MB (checked on 24 October 2026, EE price guide). Our USA eSIM is £2.99 for 1 GB over 7 days, data only. You have four ways to stay connected: your UK network, a travel eSIM, a local SIM or pocket Wi-Fi.
Information verified on 24 October 2026 at the official sources listed below. This is not immigration or legal advice; check GOV.UK and the official website of your destination before you travel. How we check information.
On this page
eSIM for the United States from £2.99 — see plans At a glance
- Purchase QR code by email · after payment
- Installation profile on your phone · up to 365 days
- Activation first network on the trip · the clock starts
Get an eSIM for the United States — from £2.99
This site is not affiliated with any of the networks mentioned here; we sell eSIMs. How we compare
This page is for people travelling from the UK to the USA. You may not need an eSIM: Tesco charges 1p a MB there, Sky VIP Diamond customers roam free, and Vodafone Global Roam, Three Complete and some O2 plans include the USA.
What do UK networks charge in the USA?
UK networks charge from 1p a MB on Tesco to £8 a day on Vodafone and Three, and each puts the USA in its own zone (checked on 24 October 2026, links in the table).
| Option | Price | What you need | Weak point |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roaming on your UK network | Included on 1 of 15 UK networks, within fair use otherwise £2.00 to £60.00 a day or pass from about £1.25 per GB | Data roaming on; on some networks a pass bought before you fly | Paid passes cost more per GB than the eSIM |
| Pocket Wi-Fi router | Not verified | Collect it, keep it charged and return it | One connection for the group, only while you stay together |
| Local SIM bought on arrival | Not verified | A free SIM slot and a shop after landing | On a one-slot phone it replaces your UK SIM |
| Travel eSIM from this site | from £2.99 by card; from £1.15 per GB | An eSIM phone that is not locked to one operator | Most plans are data only; your UK number is not on it |
Roaming prices as published by the 15 UK networks, checked on 24 October 2026; price per GB is our derivation (price ÷ GB). eSIM prices are in pounds at the day’s rate: your card is charged exactly that amount. This site is not affiliated with these networks; we sell eSIMs.
| Network | USA charge | Condition | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| EE | £5.50 for 24 hours, £26.50 for 7 days | Rest of World Zone 1; the pass uses your UK allowance, and the 24-hour pass runs from the moment you buy it; no data without a pass | 24 October 2026 |
| Vodafone | £8 a day of use | Zone C, pay monthly plans from 11 August 2021 (£6 on earlier plans), per Vodafone’s roaming guide; Global Roam plans include Zone C up to the 25GB fair use limit | 24 October 2026 |
| O2 | O2 Travel £7 per 24 hours of use; Data Roaming Bolt On 1GB £6, 3GB £13, 5GB £18 | Zone 1, Pay Monthly only; included on Volt and selected Plus plans (Travel Inclusive Zone) and on Ultimate; with neither, data stops | 24 October 2026 |
| Three | £8 a day; 7-day pass £30, 14-day pass £60 | Go Roam Around the World, on Lite and Lite+ plans joined or upgraded on or after 18 December 2025; included on Complete; passes use your UK allowance up to 12GB | 24 October 2026 |
| iD Mobile | Roam Beyond add-on: 2GB for £5 over 1 day, 10GB for £20 over 5 days, 20GB for £35 over 10 days; 30p per MB without one | The USA is a Roam Beyond destination | 24 October 2026 |
| Lebara | 4GB for £5 over 8 days, 7GB for £10 over 15 days | Zone 4 add-on, valid until 23:59 of the last day | 24 October 2026 |
| giffgaff | 20p per MB; travel data add-on of 1GB, 5GB or 10GB for 30 days, “From £4” | Zone A; the USA add-on price is in the app only, and its 30 days run from purchase | 24 October 2026 |
| Tesco Mobile | 1p per MB | Region 3, Alaska and Hawaii included; pay monthly and pay as you go | 24 October 2026 |
| Sky Mobile | £2 per 24 hours | Roaming Passport Plus, uses your UK plan; a call you make, a text you send or more than 10MB starts the 24 hours; free for Sky VIP Diamond | 24 October 2026 |
| VOXI | 2GB for £16 over 8 days, 4GB for £26.60 over 15 days | Global Roaming Extra, with minutes and texts; counts down from the day you buy it | 24 October 2026 |
| SMARTY | 10p per MB | Roaming 1, paid from out-of-plan add-ons; with none loaded, data does not work | 24 October 2026 |
| Talkmobile | 500MB for £5 over 1 day, 5GB for £20 over 8 days, 8GB for £30 over 15 days | World Holiday Booster, Zone B; no data without one | 24 October 2026 |
| Lyca Mobile | 3GB for £10 over 7 days, 7GB for £20 over 14 days | Pay as you go country pass, bought with top-up credit; up to 5 in 30 days | 24 October 2026 |
| BT Mobile | Travel Data Pass, 500MB for 24 hours | The USA is one of 12 countries on the pass; BT’s own pages show three different prices, so we print none | 24 October 2026 |
| Asda Mobile | 20p per MB | The same rate as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland | 24 October 2026 |
A per-MB rate stays small only at 1p: 1,000MB costs £10 on Tesco and £200 at 20p a MB on Asda or giffgaff (our sum).
The Vodafone and Three daily charge in the USA is the same £8. Seven days at £8 come to £56; Three’s 7-day pass is £30 (our arithmetic).
Full rates: EE, Vodafone, O2, Three, Tesco Mobile, Sky.
eSIM for the United States: selected plans
The entry plan, our pick and a bigger one. “Our pick” is a mid-size plan chosen by us, not a sales ranking.
Prices are in pounds; you are charged in GBP, exactly the amount shown. The seller is registered in the United States, so your bank may apply its own rules to a payment to a seller abroad — how card payment works. It appears on your statement as JET SHARING. You pay on the secure Stripe checkout page, by card, or Apple Pay or Google Pay if Stripe shows them on your device.
What it costs per day
Plan price in pounds ÷ days, at the rate of 1 Nov. A longer plan usually costs less per day: pick by your trip length, not by the lowest daily price.
A fortnight in Florida or New York: the sums
Fourteen days of use in the USA come to £28 on Sky, £53 on EE, £60 on Three’s 14-day pass and £112 on Vodafone’s daily charge (our arithmetic, checked on 24 October 2026). Our 5 GB plan covers 30 days for £9.99, data only.
Residents of Great Britain made 3,306,000 visits to the USA in 2025, staying 11.7 nights on average (ONS Travel trends 2025).
| Network or plan | 14 days | How we added it up |
|---|---|---|
| EE, Zone 1 | £53 | 2 weekly passes at £26.50 |
| Vodafone, pay monthly from 11 August 2021 | £112 | £8 a day of use; £0 extra on Global Roam |
| O2, Pay Monthly | £98, or £18 for 5GB | 14 days of O2 Travel at £7, or one 5GB Data Roaming Bolt On |
| Three, Lite and Lite+ from 18 December 2025 | £60 | one 14-day Around the World pass |
| Sky, not VIP Diamond | £28 | 14 passes of 24 hours at £2 |
| Talkmobile | £30 | one 15-day World Holiday Booster with 8GB |
| VOXI | £26.60 | one 15-day Global Roaming Extra with 4GB |
| Lyca, pay as you go | £20 | one 14-day pass with 7GB |
| Lebara | £10 | one 15-day add-on with 7GB |
| Tesco, 1p per MB | £10 per 1,000MB | £50 for 5,000MB; no day charge |
| Our USA plans, data only | 5 GB, £9.99 | one 30-day plan; 10 GB is £14.99, 20 GB is £22.99 |
Source: each network’s own price page, checked on 24 October 2026. The prices are the networks’; the totals are ours.
These are different products. Every network row keeps your own number; the passes use your UK allowance, the add-ons carry only the GB shown. Ours is a data-only eSIM on a second line. Roaming or eSIM walks through the choice.
EE Roam Abroad Pass vs eSIM is another question: that pass comes with Full Works plans taken after 29 August 2024, and EE’s help pages do not confirm what it covers.
How we compared eSIMs for the USA
Our methodology is a dated comparison of data-only plans with the same GB and days. For 1 GB over 7 days, four sellers charged £2.99 to £3.74 on 24 October 2026; ours is £2.99. Promotions and US-dollar prices are left out, and no seller is named. Disclosure of interest: we sell the plans in the right-hand column.
| Plan | Sellers’ range, 24 October 2026 | Sellers in range | Our plan, data only |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB, 7 days | £2.99 to £3.74 | 4 | £2.99 |
| 3 GB, 30 days | £3.74 to £9.99 | 4 | £5.99 |
| 5 GB, 30 days | £6.73 to £10.99 | 4 | £9.99 |
| 10 GB, 30 days | £9.72 to £17.50 | 4 | £14.99 |
| 20 GB, 30 days | £23.99 to £28.50 | 3 | £22.99 |
There is no single best eSIM for the USA on price alone. Compare price per GB in £, speed after fair use, and hotspot allowed or not; our USA plan data states no hotspot rule, so we promise none.
Plans without a GB total have fair-use limits: one large seller slows to 1 Mbps after 3 to 5GB a day, another to 5 Mbps after 5GB. Our plans without a GB total give 5 GB a day at full speed, then 1 Mbps.
The network used in the USA for our data plans is 
T-Mobile and 
Verizon, both marked 5G in the listing; we give no speeds. They cover the United States, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, with limited availability in Alaska, but not Canada (Canada eSIM).
Each plan starts on first connection in the USA and can be installed up to 365 days after purchase. Size it by what your phone uses in a week at home.
America SIM card bought in the UK, or an eSIM?
You can buy an America SIM card in the UK as a posted physical SIM or as an eSIM. A posted SIM takes days to arrive and needs a slot; an eSIM installs at home on Wi-Fi.
A physical SIM takes your UK SIM’s place unless the phone has two slots. An eSIM needs an unlocked, eSIM-compatible phone: dial *#06#, and an EID on screen means yes. See eSIM or physical SIM; how to install an eSIM and transfer an eSIM give the menu paths.
A SIM from a US network, bought after you land, comes with a US number; we have not checked its prices.
Install the eSIM at home before you travel; it starts only in the USA. On arrival, pick the travel line for mobile data, turn data roaming on for it, and keep data roaming off on your UK line.
That stops data charges, not every charge. On Sky a call you make or a text you send still starts the £2 pass, receiving does not; on EE, calls without a pass cost £2.46 a minute and texts 98p.
The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) publishes travel advice for the USA on GOV.UK. Read the FCDO travel advice for the USA before you book (checked on 25 October 2026).
Calls and texts: data-only vs a plan with a US number
The plans in our tables are data only: no minutes, no texts. Calls stay on your UK SIM or run over apps.
Our USA page also lists plans with minutes and texts, on T-Mobile per the plan notes. They allow local calls only: “Outgoing international calls are not allowed”, and incoming calls come off the minutes. A call home is not covered, and we promise no US number with any plan.
For bank codes by text, keep the UK SIM in the phone with data roaming off; keeping your UK number covers the set-up.
Calling home costs 89p a minute on Tesco and £2.46 on EE without a pass (checked on 24 October 2026), so ten minutes on Tesco are £8.90 (our sum).
Back to all SIM cards by country
Check before you fly
What if the eSIM doesn’t work when you land in the United States?
Check four settings, in this order, before you write to us.
The first is the line for mobile data. In the phone’s SIM settings, pick the travel line for mobile data; your UK line stays on for calls and texts, with its mobile data off.
The second is data roaming, for the eSIM line only. The eSIM is a foreign profile, so the phone treats the United States as roaming for it.
The third is the APN. The plan does not set it by itself here: add wbdata on Android under the eSIM line’s mobile network settings.
The fourth is a restart. Restart the phone or switch aeroplane mode on and off, and let it find T-Mobile and Verizon; this can take a few minutes after you leave the plane.
Still no data? Write to us on WhatsApp or at support@esimworld.co.uk with your order number, or go through the no-signal checklist. Do not delete the eSIM to “try again”: a deleted profile usually cannot be installed twice from the same code. If the eSIM doesn't work and it isn't your phone's fault, we refund the payment whether or not it was installed.
What I’d choose (and when NOT to buy the eSIM)
For a week of maps, rides and messaging I’d take 1 GB for 7 days, £2.99. For two weeks or more, with photos and social media, I’d go for 5 GB for 30 days, £9.99. If you video-call and stream every day, take the unlimited plan for 7 days, £17.99, with 5 GB a day at full speed, then 1 Mbps.
I would not recommend the eSIM in three cases. If your UK plan already includes the United States and its fair use limit is enough for you, roaming costs you nothing extra and keeps your number (compare the networks). If your phone has no eSIM or is locked to one operator, it cannot take the plan: check your model first. And if your group travels together all day and shares one connection, a pocket Wi-Fi can cover everyone.
Frequently asked questions
Which eSIM is best for travel to the USA from the UK?
The one that fits your data use and trip length, not a brand. Check your UK network first: Tesco charges 1p a MB in the USA and Sky £2 per 24 hours (checked on 24 October 2026). If yours charges more, pick a data-only eSIM by GB and days and install it before you fly.
Which SIM card is best for the USA?
For data, a travel eSIM installed at home. To keep your own number, your UK SIM on a pass or daily charge. For a US number, a SIM from a US network bought in the USA; we have not checked local SIM prices.
Can I buy a USA SIM card in the UK?
Yes, as a posted physical SIM or as an eSIM. A posted SIM takes time to arrive and needs a free slot. An eSIM installs at home on Wi-Fi and starts on first connection in the USA.
Sources checked: EE price guide, 31 March 2026 (PDF) · Vodafone roaming guide · O2 data roaming Bolt Ons · O2 Travel Inclusive Zone · Three Your Way price guide, post 19 April 2026 (PDF) · iD Mobile roaming · Lebara roaming add-on · giffgaff roaming · Tesco Mobile roaming · Sky Mobile roaming · VOXI Global Roaming Extras · SMARTY price guide (PDF) · Talkmobile Booster details · Lyca Mobile roaming · BT Travel Data Pass · Asda Mobile roaming · ONS Travel trends 2025 · FCDO: USA travel advice.
Sources are linked in the text; reviewed by Nadezhda Semenova. For the terms of your own contract, check with your network.
Unfamiliar term? See the eSIM glossary.
Get an eSIM for the United States, from £2.99 Pay by card in pounds. The seller is registered in the United States, so your bank may apply its own rules to a payment to a seller abroad. Install the profile at home on Wi-Fi before you fly. The QR code arrives by email after payment. See plans