USA & Mexico Travel eSIM

You need an eSIM-capable, carrier-unlocked phone: an iPhone XS or newer, a Pixel 3 or newer, or a recent Samsung Galaxy S, Z or A-series flagship. Dial *#06# — if an EID number is listed alongside the IMEI, the phone has an eSIM.

See the full compatibility list.

US and MX both on its coverage list. Several of the plans that qualify also carry Canada, which the coverage panel names — a rider that costs you nothing and occasionally saves a trip.

That is its sharpest use. San Diego–Tijuana, El Paso–Ciudad Juárez and Brownsville–Matamoros are walked daily by people who need data on both sides within the same hour. Two separate eSIMs means switching profiles by hand at a pedestrian bridge; one profile means not thinking about it.

Some US postpaid plans do include Mexican roaming, often with a daily cap or a speed throttle after a few gigabytes. Check yours before buying anything. This page is for the cases where it does not, where the cap is too low, or where you are visiting the US from elsewhere and adding Mexico.

Yes. One balance, and the border does not partition it: nothing is set aside for the Mexican leg and nothing expires when you walk back north through the turnstiles.

Good along the main highway corridors and in every city of size; noticeably thinner in the Sierra Madre, in rural Chiapas and Oaxaca, and on the smaller roads generally. That reflects where the Mexican networks have built, and applies equally to a local SIM.

Alaska sits under the US code and is covered. Hawaii is tagged separately by our supplier — it has its own page — so check the coverage panel rather than assuming, because a plan can say United States and not include it.

Puerto Rico carries a country code of its own despite being a US territory, so it is not swept in automatically — see the Puerto Rico page. This is the single most common coverage surprise on anything sold as covering the United States.

Broadly across American metros and in the bigger Mexican cities, assuming you bought a badged plan and your handset covers the relevant bands. Beyond those it drops to LTE, which blankets far more of both countries' land area than 5G does or soon will.

Not for this. Mexico has floated a biometric mobile registry before, and locally purchased SIMs have been subject to registration rules; none of that reaches a roaming profile, since you never become a customer of a Mexican operator in the first place.

If both countries are genuinely on the itinerary, a single profile is fewer moving parts and the data follows you rather than sitting on the SIM you are not using. Staying put in one? Then the individual pages win: United States, Mexico.

By several of these, as a third entry on their coverage list. If Canada is a certainty rather than a maybe, USA & Canada is the page built around it, and the regional North America plan takes all three at once.

Provided the plan is badged for hotspot use. Shared traffic meters identically to what the handset consumes itself — no separate bucket, no surcharge — and it is worth confirming before purchase if you are working from either side.