How to get a tourist SIM in South Africa
Tourists who google “How do I get a travel SIM in South Africa?” come up with a maze of confusing and conflicting advice, so here’s a simple way to get calls, text and data on your mobile phone (or cellphone) – and avoid massive roaming costs.
We know about the pre-travel confusion first-hand, having just returned from a trip to Johannesburg and Cape Town. A simple search for “South Africa tourist SIM card” returned advice like “buy a SIM card online before you travel” and “rent a SIM card in South Africa”. It also pulled up detailed stories of how tourists need to go through a RICA (Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication) process requiring proof of identity and residence, such as formal confirmation from a hotel or a statutory declaration from the person you’re staying with.
Certainly, on a previous trip in 2019, signing up for a mobile-phone service in South Africa proved so convoluted that we asked a local family member to get a second SIM in his name to circumvent the process.
On this trip, however, we arrived at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, headed to the Vodacom shop and walked out with a tourist SIM (also called a travel SIM) within five minutes. This was the process:
- Choose your plan
- Hand over your passport
- Pay
- Install the SIM in your phone
- That’s it
The locals advised us to stick to Vodacom (which is majority owned by Vodafone) as it has good coverage, plans and service, and its outlets can be seen all over the place. At OR Tambo airport, it’s located on the right as you walk out of international arrivals into the meet-and-greet area. Also here is MTN, which seems to be recommended if you’re also travelling to Eswatini – the former Swaziland.
While you get minutes, data and SMSs in your Vodacom travel bundle, you also get ‘airtime’, which is probably one of the most confusing things about South African cellphone services. As far as we can make out, airtime can be seen as credits that can be used to buy more minutes (talk time), data and texts.
Vodacom Tourist SIM rates
These are the current Vodacom Tourist SIM rates as they were offered to us. All include ICP (International Calling Plus).
R299
3GB data
30 minutes
R50 airtime
30 SMSs
R449
5GB data
50 minutes
R100 airtime
50 SMSs
R699
10GB data
100 minutes
R150 airtime
100 SMSs
