Spain eSIM

Start with one question: where is your phone contract from? If it is from an EU or EEA country, you already roam like at home in Spain and may not need anything extra. This eSIM is for everyone else: visitors from the UK, the United States, Canada, Australia or anywhere outside the EU and EEA; people whose European tariff has only a small roaming allowance; and travellers combining Spain with countries outside those rules, such as a ferry hop to Morocco.

Spain is home turf for us, since Startia Operadora is a Spanish telecommunications operator based in Córdoba. The catalog here is straightforward: fixed data bundles of 1–50 GB, valid for 7, 15 or 30 days. Prices start at €4.99, the lowest cost per gigabyte is €0.78/GB, and VAT is included.

Some rough sizes:

• City weekend in Madrid, Barcelona or Seville, with maps, messaging and some photos: the 3 GB plan.
• Two weeks between Andalusia and the Mediterranean coast, sharing photos daily: 10 to 20 GB.
• A month or more walking the Camino de Santiago, studying or working remotely from Valencia or Málaga: 50 GB or a daily plan.

Daily plans provide a fresh amount of high-speed data each day. If you use it up, you stay online at a reduced speed until it renews the next day, under the fair use policy. They suit heavy users who would rather not keep count.

One technical note: traffic on these plans leaves the network through another European country (France, the Netherlands or the UK). Browsing, maps and messaging are unaffected, but a website may occasionally show you its version for another country.

You can top up any plan from your account. If Spain is one stop among several, the Europe (33 destinations) plan or the Europe and Morocco plan covers the whole route on one eSIM. To see how prices stack up, compare with Airalo.

Your eSIM connects to Movistar and Orange, both with 5G. Your phone attaches to whichever gives the better signal at any point on your route.

Coverage is strong in the cities, along the motorways and across the Balearic and Canary Islands, and 5G is widely available in urban areas. The gaps are in the mountains, notably the Pyrenees and the Picos de Europa, and in the sparsely populated interior, where you can lose signal for a few kilometres between villages. If you are hiking or driving back roads through Aragon or Castile, keep offline maps on your phone.

The eSIM is data-only and has no Spanish number. WhatsApp, FaceTime and other internet calls work normally over data, while regular calls and texts stay on your usual SIM.

The eSIM reaches you by email right after payment, and you can also find it on your order page. It comes with a QR code and the manual details, and on iPhones running iOS 17.4 or later there is a one-tap install button. Do it at home before you fly into Madrid-Barajas, Barcelona-El Prat or Málaga: validity begins only when your phone first connects to a network in Spain, so installing early wastes nothing.

On arrival, in your phone's mobile data settings, make the eSIM your data line and enable data roaming on it. Keep your home SIM switched on for calls and texts, including bank verification codes, but with its data roaming off so your provider does not charge you. The new line shows up as "Carrier"; rename it "Startia" to keep things clear.

If the trip falls through, an eSIM you have not installed can be refunded; if it is just delayed, you have 180 days to install it. New to eSIMs? The iPhone guide and Android guide cover every step.

Meal times catch many visitors out. Lunch usually starts around 2 pm and dinner around 9 pm, and plenty of restaurants close their kitchens in between. Many smaller shops close in the afternoon and on Sundays, so do your shopping in the morning or in larger stores.

Cards and phone payments work almost everywhere, from small bars to taxis in the big cities. Tipping is not obligatory; rounding up or leaving small change is the norm.

High-speed AVE trains and other long-distance services link the main cities, and fares are best booked ahead in the Renfe app. Madrid and Barcelona both have extensive metro networks with rechargeable transport cards. For short hops, Cabify, Uber and FREENOW work in the larger cities, and Glovo delivers food and groceries.

Sockets are types C and F at 230 V and 50 Hz, so visitors from the UK or North America need an adapter. Mainland Spain is on UTC+1 (UTC+2 in summer), and the Canary Islands run one hour behind. The country code is +34. In an emergency, dial 112 for police, fire or ambulance; 091 reaches the National Police and 062 the Guardia Civil. Use your home line for these calls.

Continuing to Portugal or crossing into France? Check those plans before you go.