Prepaid SIM/eSIM in Bhutan: How much does it cost? Where to buy one? (2024)
Buying an eSIM valid in Bhutan
If you want to keep things simple and have a compatible phone, you can buy an eSIM valid in Bhutan.
Since Bhutan is a tiny country, there don’t seem to be many options available for it.
Airalo offers one at an attractive price (USD 9.50), but with little data (1 GB). So it’s not necessarily a great deal.
Buying a SIM card at the airport
At Paro International Airport, you’ll find two counters selling SIM cards:
- TashiCell: a private company
- Bhutan Telecom: the national operator
You can’t miss them; the airport is tiny!
The offers are pretty much the same. For a week with unlimited internet, it’ll cost you 1,100 ngultrums, or about EUR 12.
Bhutan Telecom is also, according to our guide, the operator with the best network coverage.
Since our guide was waiting for us, we didn’t experience the purchasing process at the airport, but it seemed simple and quick.
Buying a SIM card in town
We took advantage of our stay in Bhutan to completely unplug during the day, making do with the hotel’s WiFi in the evening.
Since we were staying in a remote homestay without WiFi, we asked our guide to buy a SIM card in town.
We then went to a Bhutan Telecom shop.
An employee was there and confirmed that we could buy a SIM card.
No luck; it was lunch break time. And in Bhutan, they don’t compromise on that 🙂 So we couldn’t buy our SIM card.
Luckily, our driver had a spare SIM card and lent it to us. We just needed to buy credit, which can be done online.
For 200 ngultrums (EUR 2.23), we were able to buy 1 GB of mobile data. We gave the money to our guide, who did the transaction on his phone, all instantly.
We had a decent signal, even in somewhat remote areas.
To check your remaining balance with Bhutan Telecom, you can dial *170#
