Best mobile plan for India for foreign travelers in 2025

I recently visited India for two weeks, a country where smartphones have proliferated and apps have become ubiquitous for many aspects of society. Therefore, it’s incredibly important to be able to stay connected throughout your whole trip.

Among the various countries I’ve visited, I’ve found eSIMs to be excellent choices in many countries. However, in my experience, India is a country where not getting a local SIM card will make your life significantly harder.

What should I get in India?

The best mobile carrier (and cell network) for foreigners is going to be Airtel. They have the most reliable coverage nationwide and is the only carrier that has booths at international airports’ arrival halls.

Airtel sells SIM cards that are instantly activated at the time of purchase (meaning 5-10 minutes after payment), but as more phones change to eSIMs, Airtel now offers instant eSIM activation too. As long as the staff are competent, they will be able to activate it for you all at once. If they are incompetent, they will give you a physical SIM and tell you to convert to a eSIM later in the Airtel Thanks app, by yourself. Some Airtel staff are too strict and require a local contact to provide an OTP code for registration, but in my experience, the Airtel staff member who helped me activate my eSIM didn’t require this.

For just a few hundred rupees, I got 1.5 GB of data per day plus 500 MB bonus (so 2 GB today). Plus, my iPhone 15 Pro Max is 5G-compatible, and my plan included unlimited data whenever I was on their 5G network. Wherever their 5G network isn’t congested, I could receive speeds of up to 500 Mbps down, which is impressive.

Airtel’s tourist plan costs ₹349 per month plus another ₹300 for the SIM card itself. The tourist SIM card is only valid for 90 days and can’t be renewed further.

You can also get an Airtel SIM outside of an airport, but try to find a bona fide Airtel store in a tourist area or a large city, so that you can have a higher chance of being paired with a staff member who knows what they’re doing.

Make sure to bring your passport (and e-visa papers, if you don’t have a paper visa), as it’s required to get your SIM card.

Overall, while Airtel is not perfect, it’s still the most solid option available in India, and at its price point, it’s an insanely good deal that no eSIM provider will be able to beat, guaranteed.

Do eSIMs work well in India?

On the other hand, I had a poor experience attempting to use eSIMs from eSIM providers. In my case, I tried two: Airalo and 3 Hong Kong. I use the latter as a global plan and it simply doesn’t work well in India. The former, Airalo’s eSIM, is somewhat usable but at times barely works. The internet tends to be slow and ineffective, as the traffic is routed out of the country. There was also no 5G coverage for my phone. The Jio network tends to be cheap so it’s less reliable. These two factors cause the latency to be very high.